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Tutorials about the technique question
Using mask in Blender
Using Lens focus in Blender
Animating the face of my final project in Blender
Another way to animate face in Blender
How to make character pick up & put down objects in Blender
How to reduce noise and speeding up the cycles render engine
Camera tracking in Blender
Camera tracking to object in Blender
Character rigging in Blender
Walking in Blender
Composting with Blender
When I edit the video, I used the following tutorials
Bibliography I have read
Alison McMahan. 2006. The Films of Tim Burton: Animating Live Action in Contemporary Hollywood. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. p. 8-17.
Cary Elza. 2014. Alice in Cartoonland: Childhood, Gender, and Imaginary Space in Early Disney Animation. Animation: an interdisciplinary journal. Vol. 9(1) 7–26.
Harold Whitaker, 2013. John Halas. Timing for Animation. CRC Press. p.120.
Joanna Rose Bouldin. 2004. The Animated and The Actual: Toward a Theory of Animation, Live-action, and Everyday Life. ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing.
John Lasseter. 1987. Principles of traditional animation applied to 3d computer animation. Computer Graphics(ACM). Vol.21(4). p.35-44.
Kara Lynn Andersen. 2009. Immaterial materiality: Collecting in live-action film, animation, and digital games. ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing.
Margaret F. Callcott and Wei-Na Lee. 1994. A Content Analysis of Animation and Animated Spokes-Characters in Television Commercials, Journal Of Advertising. ISSN: 0091-3367, Vol.23(4), p.1-12.
Mark J. P. Wolf. 1995. In the Frame of “Roger Rabbit”: Visual Compositing in Film. A Critical Journal of Film and Television. Vol.36, p.45.
Sean Cubitt. 2012. Avatar and Utopia. Animation: an interdisciplinary journal. p:227-237.
Rosenthal-von der Pütten, Astrid M. ; Krämer, Nicole C. 2014. How design characteristics of robots determine evaluation and uncanny valley related responses. Computers in Human Behavior. Vol.36, pp.422-439.
I have already read and the following list I will read:
Chiris Crawford.2013. Chiris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling. Second Edition. Berkeley, Calif. : New Riders Games.
David A. Kirby. 2003. Science Consultants, Fictional Films, and Scientific Practice. Sage Publications, Ltd. Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 231-268.
Eric Herhuth. 2014. Life, Love, and Programming: The Culture and Politics of WALL-E and Pixar Computer Animation. Cinema Journal. Vol.53(4), p.53-75.
Tanner, Lr., Haddock, SA.,Zimmerman, TS. and Lund, LK. 2003. Images of couples and families in Disney feature-length animated films. Peer Reviewed Journal. Vol.31(5), pp.355-373.
Gbadeyan, R. A. 2010. Content analysis of selected television commercials to children in Lagos State Nigeria. African Journal of Marketing Management. Vol. 2(5) pp. 101-106.
Holness, L. 2012. Lights, camera, (call to) action: Global public engagement in film launch campaigns. ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing.
John Wills. 2002. Digital Dinosaurs and Artificial Life: Exploring the Culture of Nature in Computer and Video Games. Cultural Values. Vol.6. No. 4. p. 395-417.
Sharafutdinova, M.S. Sorensen, V. Glazier, L. and Capuzzo, H. 2010.Personal animation. ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing.
The problems I have met when I was doing the cake shop’s part and book shop’s part
I have finished the cake shop’s part and book shop’s part.
Firstly: the hand bone rigging maybe is not very good and the textures of the robot is too unclear. If the shoot is close-up, you can see the crazes in hand.
Furthermore, every frames have three layers: 3D Elements, shadows and composite layer
Secondly, I want to add the shadow in the bookshelves and the shadow make all the view too dark.
Thirdly, I make a mask in some shots. I know how to add a mask but I don’t know how to make the make disappear in the middle of the video. So I manually operate the render sequence.
The first outline of essay
Everyone’s heart is occupied by something.
Animating ‘character’
This project examines the role played by characterization in animation, with practical output that demonstrates the portrayal of emotion and personality in an artificial life form. Additionally the project discusses the relationship between live action and animation.
- A discussion about the animation, in aspects of the storyline, motivation and aim.
The practical part of this project is a short animation called Everyone’s heart is occupied by something, which was created using the free open source software Blender 2.73 and Canon 500D camera. The aim of the animation is, in short, to tell a story about a robot finds something to fill his heart.
1.1 Narrative and camera language
2.2 why I create this story
- Discuss about the character’s design and the aim behind it and execution.
2.1 The body (Why I design a hole in the middle)
The real and the exaggerations
2.2 The face
ASIMO
uncanny valley – disturbing, unsettling
- Discussion of the relationship between live action and animation and why I use real environments into an animation.
3.1The relationship between live action and animation
3.1.1 Live-action film —-live-action character combined with animated environment
Examples:
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah(1946)
Mary Poppins(1964)
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
Pink Floyd(1982)
Avatar (2009)
3.1.2 Animated/live action——— animated character interacted with the live world Two Media forms
Examples:
Pete’s Dragon （1977）
Who Framed Roger Rabbit （1988）
“I’m seeing all these story boards that I would’t have seen before the movie. we were knee-deep in character animation long before Roger Rabbit although I noticed a marked increase in the amount of that type of work [live action/animation combinations] after the movie hit”
———-A Content Analysis of Animation and Animated Spokes-Characters in Television Commercials p:2
Jurassic Park（1993）
Night at the museum（2006）
Alvin and The Chipmunks（2007）
G-Force（2009）
Paddington （2015）
Sponge out of Water（2015）
Whole Lotta Quakin ads （1989）
Brand: M&Ms ads （2011）
Mirinda ads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7MzvEAo1Nc
Beauty & the Beast 3d 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6bnGiW4PNg
3.1.3 live action with stop motion animation
Example: Willis O’Brien
Ray Harryhausen (1920)
The New Gulliver(1935)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial(1982)
3.2 why I use real environments into an animation.
3.2.1 Affinity
Panofsky and others have long held that no matter how fantastic, live-action film always refers to reality as such, and the ontologic argument that film has an especial affinity for presenting the material world only holds up as long as animation is excluded from consideration. －IMMATERIAL MATERIALITY: COLLECTING IN LIVE-ACTION FILM, ANIMATION, AND DIGITAL GAMES p：102
3.2.2 Utopia
Visualize imagine characters and environments which cannot have in the real world.
3.2.3 Target group: children
The combination of live action and animation is very common in TV commercials and TV shows, especially those promoting products appealing to children.
4. Conclusion
4.1 Summary
4.2 Techniques
Light and compositing
Compositing multiple plates into a single image creates challenges for lighting, grading and editing, while the distinct methods of each produces aesthetic challenges in creating apparently coherent space.
4.3 Limitations
4.4 Future Projects
The first shot of my animation
Storyboard of the rest story: book shop and the end
The storyboard of the book shop is similar with the cake shop. The book shop name is Armchair Books.
Here are the location contrast of Armchair Books:
Here are storyboard of the cake shop:
①②③④⑤⑥⑦⑧⑨⑩⑪The robot goes into a book shop and chooses a book. Then try to put the book to his heart. Finally the book is not he really wants.
⑫⑬⑭is the end of the story. A girl gives the robot a cup of warm cup and the robot feels the warmth of the people. That is what he really wants.
Ps: Location Contrast of the cake shop
The robot walk in the room
The tracking is not very good, so I give up and just match it
I also try two render engines and use Premiere to adjust the color. As following video:
First is from blender render
Second is from blender render and adds the color filter.
Third is from cycles render
Forth is from cycles render and adds the color filter
The cycles render is more real but render speed is very slow.
Storyboard of cake shop’s part
I try to paint the storyboard. First, I draw the cake shop part. Because I have the agreement of a cake shop which named Patisserie Florentin. At the beginning, the robot passes this cake shop① and raises his head to see the shop② ③. Because in his world everyone has something in their heart, he imitates others who have a cake in the heart. He steps into the shop④⑤and obtains a cake⑥⑦, then he put it to his heart carefully⑧. He feels very happy because he has something in his heart. He wants to go into the street ⑨and show his heart. However, when he walks out, the cake falls down⑩. He picks it up⑪ and put it into his heart again. But the cake falls again. He is very sad ⑫and wants to find other things to fill his heart.
Money models
In my story, everyone has something in their heart. I create money models and use cycles render to render it. It is my first time to use cycles render. Using cycles render consume a lot of time. The following picture spent 20 mins to render but is more real.
YOUQING 