Happy Tree Friends

This is an episode of Happy Tree Friends. Harry sent it to me. Our film is much less gross and violent, as I want it to be shown to kids. Besides that I don't find extreme violence like this that funny.

Mo's Rigging R.A.M

Mo's done a great blog of him rigging and modelling R.A.M. I'ts just so great. Thanks Mo.

Here's the link.

http://rigging-ram.blogspot.com/

Susie Voice Auditions

More Susie Voice Audtitions

What do you guys think!

Susie- Voice

This is an audition by a lady called Kim Crow for Susie. What do you think? Did I mention she will do it for free!

More Voices and Payment

More Voices from Voice123. Oh, and that guy wants $200.

VOICE PROBLEM URGENT!!!!!

I have a problem. I signed up to a website called www.voice123.com, which is the website Mo used to get his narrator, and posted up the project on there. I then sent out invitations to audition for the project to loads of people, and three have already replied back. So will have to decide and I can't decide. I don't want to tell people no. And worse still, someone has actually gone and already recorded the Professor for us and he is expecting to be paid but he hasn't said how much.

Oh I'm in over my head here.

Voices

I have posted the project on www.voice123.com under the title of "The Fantastical Escapades of the Professor". Let's hope we get something out of it.

Animation techniques from Spongebob Squarepants

Here are some animating tips and techniques I found on the Internet. This model sheet of Mickey I just like, I think it has really strong poses and shows construction.
These are actual tips and techniques guide by Spongebob Artists that I obtained from a blog called Cartoon Snap. Where he got them from I don't know but they are excellent.

Voice Actor Research

Hi everyone.

I've been researching and trying to contact a lot of different voice actors today. I just hope they reply and agree to do it. A lot have come from a website called http://www.voiceactors.com/ or just from youtube. Here are some of the reels I found, I want to know what you guys think of them.

Poitr



Josh Thompson



Josh Mondelli



Assortment of reels from www.voiceactors.com

Congratulations to all.

Congratulations to all.

I just want to say I think yesterday went really well and that every ones done a good job so far. We've got more work to do over the holidays but I'm really pleased.

Well done and Merry Christmas.

The Group

Production Schedule

Here is the new production schedule created by Al for the entire year. All group members shouls have a look at it. We have a big job ahead.

Animatic and Blockout

We just got the animatic back from Jason. He did a great job. It really adds to the action.

From this we made a block out. I drew up some key poses and inked them in. Simon and Elisha then put them on planes and put them in the background. It should give an idea of what it may look like.

Now we just have to prepare for the presentation and submission on Friday.

Idea and Research

In order to help we animation and resizing up the background I decided to model some dummy models of each of the characters to use as reference, just like the do on actual productions.


Harrison suggest we actually split the renders up into different layers to make it easier for composting. That's a good idea.

I've also got some video reference of Stitch, for four arm animation.


Lot's of Christmas work to do.

Dummy Test Models

Here are some dummy test models I made. I made them so the Elisha and Harry could have some reference of size when they rescale the background.

Current progress

Update:

Currently right this second we are working on a block-out. This means we are taking the 2D images and put them other rendered out footage of the 3D backgrounds.

It is taking much longer than I thought.

Coloured Environment and Lighted Block-Out

Elisha's coloured block-out and Harrison did the lights to improve the environment:

Notice to all Group Members

Just a quick note to Al, Simon, Harry, James, Tony and Elisha.

I am very pleased with the work that has been done. I get excited evrytime you guys show me something. Thanks.

We're going to be having a group meeting on Tuesday to prepare for Friday.

See you all there.

Daryl

P.S. Harry sent me a picture of lighting of the blockout. Looks good.

Expression Sheets

Below is a png file I made to show what I expect Simon to do with the pose sheets I sent him for the blockout.
Here are some expression sheets I did of all the characters. The R.A.M one is useful for blend shapes. I'm going to e-mail them to Simon, James, Tony and Al.

Character Poses

Simon ask me to draw up some of the key character poses for use in the block out. So I did. Took a while though. I believe he wants to use Elisha's background model, animate the cameras to match the storyboards and composite these on top in Aftereffects. If he can do it, that would be great.

New Animatic

Here's the new animatic. We've shortened it down by a few minutes, it's now about 2 minutes 20 seconds, which is much better. More importantly it feels snappier and better. Now we have just given it to Jason (sound designer) to see what he can do before Friday. What do you think.

Test Walkcycles

Here are some test walkcycles I did for each of the characters. I tried to get different feels of walks for each character. These are just rough tests.

R.A.M is very short, so he has to hop quite quickly.
The Professor is very energetic and optimistsic. He walks with the classic 8 frame double bounce walk. Notice the lower set of arms are slightly delayed.
Susie-May glides across the floor not moving her head at all. She swings her hips and shoulders for sassyiness.
Mort has a great deal of weight so has to shift that weight we he walks. He takes 16 frames.

Animatic Verison 2

Well here's the second version of the animatic. Simon did a good job. I think the footage needs to be edited a little quicker. I'm gonna have a closer look at it on Friday, then I will send it to Jason. Got to make it perfect.

Design Research and Model Sheet Corrections

Elisha pointed out to me that my designs, especially Susie-May, looked a bit similar to the wife in Goof Troop. So I thought it be a good idea to put up some model sheets of her for research.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any, but I did find some from A Goofy Movie.

I would also like to make a correction to my previous Susie-May Model Sheet. Her head has been made slightly larger to emphasize cuteness so she is about four heads tall. I will re-do that model sheet soon.

Inspiration for Animators

Hi,

Here's some videos I found on YouTube to inspire the animators (including myself).

The master Glen Keene at work, giving a lecture at CalArts. More Parts on YouTube.


Here's a lip-sync test by a guy who worked on that "Pyrats" film.


This kind of level of work I think is obtainable. By the way this is not from "The Little Mermaid", some colleges make you animate a known character to test your drawing skills.


This is of course an expert level of quality using a very simple character. It's Tony White's Film "Endangered Species".

New Research

I met today with a sound design student called Jason Hodder who indeed was very helpful and kindley agreed to sound design the film. Now I just need to find music that is appropiate for the film for him to use.

I found this. Upon watching this I released that "Watch Mr. Wizard" is what my film is based on. This episode is from 1951. The theme is sort of what I'm looking for, maybe it needs to be a bit bigger. Enjoy!



James suggested the theme from this show Mystery Science Theatre.


I was also thinking of something like Home Improvement


Al suggested theme tunes such as "Whose line is it anyway" or just a hoedown. I found this, it's the theme from the UK version of "The Price is Right" from 1984.

New Boards

Here are the new boards. They are not exactly in the correct order, but they are taken out of context anyway. I tried to make the ending much bigger, but I didn't want to go too gross. So I went for a more ridiculous feel to it. We have to record new dialogue and put it in the animatic. I might be too long so edits will have to be made to cut it down to two minutes. Then we can give it to Jason Hodder, the sound designer. We've got to get that done asap.

Inspiration for new ending

To inspire me into creating a new idea for the ending, I decided to watch some Tom and Jerry cartoons. I felt that this type of humour was perfect was big, funny but not gross. Specific cartoons are like "Bowling Alley Cat" and "Mouse Trouble".

Story Crisis

Okay everyone. Early Test screenings have come back we have notes. They feel the camera is too static and the ending needs to be bigger, funnier. It's too safe, pedestrian. We must re-write. Everyone think bigger, funnier. Group pitch is only three weeks away.

R.A.M Test 3D Model

Here are some shots of a test model of RAM I did to see if the Toon Shader effects will work. I think it turned out quite well. Now he just needs to be re-modelled and full rigged with blend shapes. I best get someone else to do that.