The Brief Year Rundown
This year was the first year of my 2 year diploma course in animation and VFX. The theme for this year was "Motion Graphic Comic Books" and super heroes. The year was split up into units: 1-4, 5-7 and then my FMP (Final Major Project). The first units were research units in the form of PowerPoints. We created 3 PowerPoints.
1. Mise En Scene 2. A mock Business 3. Research into Motion Graphic Comics and Comic history.
The units 5-7 was a group project where we had to create a game and hit basic criteria like movement, sound and interaction. This was done in The Unreal Engine programme.
For the FMP it was rather tricky. Covid19 hit and we had to go into lockdown. My teaching was reduced and the FMP brief was changed. Instead we had to just work with what we had. My Zbrush wasn't working correctly so I drew my characters 2D in a 3D styles in Procreate for iPad. I created all the assets and scenes with textures and lighting in Maya and I created the sound and editing in after effects.
1. Mise En Scene 2. A mock Business 3. Research into Motion Graphic Comics and Comic history.
The units 5-7 was a group project where we had to create a game and hit basic criteria like movement, sound and interaction. This was done in The Unreal Engine programme.
For the FMP it was rather tricky. Covid19 hit and we had to go into lockdown. My teaching was reduced and the FMP brief was changed. Instead we had to just work with what we had. My Zbrush wasn't working correctly so I drew my characters 2D in a 3D styles in Procreate for iPad. I created all the assets and scenes with textures and lighting in Maya and I created the sound and editing in after effects.
Group Project- The Red Bandit
Last year we were split into groups and instructed to create a superhero game in the Unreal Engine in just 1 month. My group consisted of 3 of us and we divided the roles evenly. I did all the Maya modelling and texturing, Emilee did the character modelling with assistance from Tameme who was in charge of programming and animations in the Unreal Engine. I began by creating assets in Maya and started on the Madagascar crates seen in the video below. This was my first Maya model and I created the textures in photoshop. Throughout the project I created all assets and created the textures in photoshop as well, but when it came to the warehouse they were created in substance painter. Overall I think we did well in the project, there are obvious mistakes and errors but in a month with absolutely no prior experience I feel we did extremely well and have come a long way since. Below is a link to my analysis of the project and a gameplay footage trailer.
Red Bandit Gameplay and Analysis video
FMP- Deadpool and the Pink Sock
Scroll to bottom for final video.
The FMP (Final Major Project) for this year was rather strange. Covid19 changed the criteria for the FMP but either way I loved creating it. We were instructed to create a Motion Graphic Comic Book with 3D elements and edit it in Adobe After Effects. I chose to create my own Deadpool story and started with the storyboard. I created a story where Deadpool is asked to do the washing for the Stormtroopers. Stupidly he leaves a pink sock in the washing machine, dying the outfits pink. Deadpool reports to Darth Vader and is punished for his actions. As well as the story board comic I also created the concepts for Deadpool and the Storm Trooper.
I began creating a storyboard on procreate and mapped out what I wanted each scene to look like roughly. For the final product each slide was grouped into sets and locations. These locations fit 3 3D modelled scenes. 1. The living room 2. The kitchen and 3 The Death Star. All of these scenes were modelled and included the key elements found on the storyboard. After modelling, texturing and rendering all the scenes I drew Deadpool, the helmet and the Stormtroopers over a screen shot image of each rendered scene. Some shots were taken directly from a film shot so a reference shot was used before a sketch. Others were just drawn regularly. I did use a colour drop tool for Deadpool as I wanted the get the colours correct but used these colours in a larger surface than it would actually be. When creating productions I really like to include Easter Eggs and references to other films. In this case there are plenty to spend your time looking for including posters, Funko Pop Figures, Clocks and even merchandise for Deadppool himself. I chose to include Deadpool themed items as the character is a comedic character and I think him buying his own merchandise reflects his personality perfectly.