First Try at Boned Animation

First real try at animation & using bones. Very exciting indeed! After many failed attempts grasped the concept of adding the dummies to the joins, not the actual bones and everything started to work! Found that using the IK Limb command to make the original bone structure was a good way to start, and then add the IKHI Solver to where specfic joints should move. This meant the snake could have fluid movement with just 3 IKHI Solvers at top, middle and end. I think I need to play a lot more with animation, but the basics are there and I'm confident i can animate my charaters arms OK, which is the only real movement they need to make.

Modelling the characters

The basic characters will be the same, differences being hair and clothes. This is my first attempt at a head. The hair proved to be much more difficult to sculpt than I imaginged!

2nd ident idea

After chatting to Jo I examined the concept of the picture within a picture, scene within a scene concept similar to many Margritte paintings such as 'La Condition Humaine' The original wedding couple will reveal to be replicas on a cake before the photo is taken.

Mood board

For the idents - fun - young - cute - romantic - simplistic - here are some ideas!

Ideas for the ident

Been thinking hard about the rght ident for the piece. Have been watching a lot of the TV idents, especially BBC2 & 3 which fits my perception of the use I'm going to put my characters to rather than the graphical (and extremely clever) idents of BBC4.

I want to utilize the 3D Max elements as much as possible to give a real sense of depth and fluidity, again taking the BBC2 '2' logo & 3 static charter idents and making their environment much more dynamic, without the filmic qualities that BBC2 are currently employing.

So, here's the first idea. Now all I have to do is decided whether to adapt the current idea into three similar pieces to retain continuity and corporate identity, or to make each one radically different. From looking at all the current and recent past idents, the former, continuity, seems to be the way to adopt.

First go at animation

First three attempts at animation - not that great but very exciting!

Choosing the ident

Well, I've been looking through all the different TV stations, both mainstream and digital and I've decided the best one to tackle will be Wedding.tv, on Sky. I was at a wedding and saw a great decorative couple on top of a wedding cake that could be ideal for a staion ident, rather like the little orange man blob people on BBC3. Now all I have to do is think of three interesting ways to animate them!

Max Spider

First play at 3D Max - very exciting. Using the extrude tools, not quite mastered them yet, so made the sider in classic joining the bits together. Looks pretty cool. Jo showed me bones & skinning - that's the way to go - will explore that further - will look good with the animated wedding people I'm planning to use for the idents. Tom showed me the hair effect - very exciting but does take a while to render. Hopefully this can only get better!

1st October

Spent a good weekend looking at idents and logos. With all the digital channels around there is so much to choose from. Noticed how the use of CGI has expanded the variety and versitility of the idents around, although there is a definate minority backlash for both kitch and simplistic designs - interesting!