Sonic Effect (Sonic and Mass Effect Crossover)

So during my spare time I've been making progress on character designs for this crossover. I've been having fun with this side project so far, its been really interesting to compare characters from both Sonic and Mass Effect to see similarities between them. My aim is to try and create Sonic versions of the original Mass Effect squad (4 down, 3 to go).

 

I've also got a new Deviantart profile as well. I'll still be updating on here as well. Click on each picture to be taken to my new page.

 

 

 

Holiday Interview Update

Red Panda Animation Progress and Showreel Update

Hi guys, been working more on the animation I'm creating for The Red Panda Trust. I've been animating a jump that transcends into the companies logo. This project's been fun so far, had quite a lot of freedom to animate and design the film.

Also been trying to improve certain parts of my showreel, mainly my 3D animations. Been working on my lip synch so far, adding to the animation and modelling and texturing more objects into the scene. Here's some rendered screenshots, I'll have the new and improved animation soon.

Red Panda Trust Animation Progress

This some of the work I've been creating for an organisation called The Red Panda Trust since November last year. I was asked to produce a short animation as a test by the company, so I chose a run cycle to show my ability.

The first video was the original run cycle I created. I wasn't sure if they wanted a different design for the animation, so I created my own design to see if it worked. I knew from the beginning that I wanted the animation to look quite clean, so I decided to use Illustrator to copy over the original drawing. It was also a lot quicker to draw the posing for each frame using Illustrator.

Unfortunately, it wasn't what they were looking for. They liked the red panda's design, but they felt it targeted a too specific demographic. They wanted the design to replicate their current logo. After some heavy modifications to the frames, I also added a bit more motion to the torso as well to avoid it looking too static.

This video is a current walk cycle I'm working on. I'm close to finishing, but I still just need to fine tune the smoothness of the legs.

Back after LONG Hiatus/ Sonic Mass Effect

Happy new year to everyone. Sorry about the lack of updates over the last few months, my life's been very hectic recently. Thought as it's the new year I'd start posting again.

I finished my degree in Animation last year and got a 2:1 (YAY!), and I've been seeking out various work opportunities pretty much everywhere. I volunteered at Bristol Encounters Film Festival and did some work for Social Enterprise West Midlands last year (I'll update about that later). I also got a part-time job at Primark for some extra money. For now, I'll show you some of the work I've done in my spare time.

This is for a project I've been doing in my spare time entitled Sonic Mass Effect. As their two of my favourite games to play, I thought I'd have a go at merging various characters from both series to see how well they'd fit together.

First up was Sonic, who's merge with Shepard was a bit of a no brainer as their both the main playable characters. Part of the challenge was blending N7 armour with Sonic's simple design. I then learnt how Sonic's shoes were based on the same ones Michael Jackson wore in the 'Bad' video, so I wanted to portray a similar effect in his armour design. I took major influence from the suit he wore when performing Billie Jean on stage, particularly the single glove he wore. I also gave the armour a blue tint so that it would look more natural against Sonic's spines. Theres still a bit more detail I need to add on the final image, but it shouldn't take too long now.

Original Sketch (A5 Paper)

Final Image (WIP) - Drawn in Illustrator, Coloured in Photoshop

Next up was Tails, who required a bit more thought as to which Mass Effect character he'd portray. It was a toss up between Joker or Garrus, but I decided to go with the latter due to their similar personalities (Slightly under confident, look up to main hero as a role model, tech savvy). Part of the challenge was still making Tails look cute in Garrus' armour, which wasn't particularly easy. I made the tails look feather-like to fit in with the Turians bird physique. This is my favourite one I've made so far, I just need to add the final details before he's completely finished.

Original Sketch (A5 Paper)

Final Image (WIP) - Drawn in Illustrator, Coloured in Photoshop

Knuckles was also fairly hard to figure out his character. He's cast the strong one in the Sonic games, so he could play any of the brute characters from Mass Effect (Grunt, James etc). After looking at various Mass Effect character sstory arcs to see if they share Knuckles' backstory, I decided to cast him as Wrex. This is mainly down to Knuckles and Wrex's roles as guardians (Floating Island and Tuchanka respectively), their initial hostility towards the main character and their transformation from pessimists to optimists. It took a while to include all the armour detail, but I'm close to finishing now. I also added a Pyjak (Chu Chu) for good measure.

Original Sketch (A5 Paper)

Final Image (WIP) - Drawn in Illustrator, Coloured in Photoshop

Hope you like them so far, I'll make sure to post again as soon as possible.

Final Films: 3D Modelling and Final Major Project

Here's the films for my final year university. The first one represents my concept art and 3D modelling, which leads into the final project below, enjoy.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 17

This week my aim has been to make refinements to Fishbone's animation. As he is the most complex character in the scene, I felt it was important to focus on his animation. This was also necessary to avoid making changes when rendering.

 

 

 

One thing I have focused on is the inbetweening of certain parts of Fishbone's animation. This is to achieve the best result in motion and avoid the animation from looking too stiff when played back. Below are some examples of the inbetween frames that I've done.

 

 

 

I've also started to make progress on the coconut's animation. I've left this character's animation till last because I know it will be a lot easier to animate than Fishbone. I now need to finish making refinements to the scene and characters before I begin rendering the scene and adding sound.

Working on this project has really taught me a lot about time management and teamwork. I have also learnt a lot more tips and tricks in Maya, and I will aim to discover more techniques in this software to improve my workflow. I now aim to take these skills and use them for studio practice.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 16

This week I've been carrying on with Fishbone's animation as before, and aiming to finish Fishbone's base animation so that I can improve previous parts of his animation. 

I carried on with the same process of animating over the blocked frames. One thing that has been difficult is keeping the trident placed in Fishbone's hand, so I've had to use numerous keys to keep it attached.

Next week I will start improving Fishbone's animation and start animating the coconut. Hopefully I will also be able to find time to do secondary animation for the palm tree and the rst of the environment.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 15

This week I've carried on working on the animation of Fishbone. I've also rectified part of the scene so as to improve the quality of the final render.

Over this week I've feel that I've made good progress with the animation, making refinements where necessary. I have now reached the halfway point of my animation, and will continue working on the motion to improve it.

I have also refined some of the detail on the main island. As I've been occasionally rendering some parts of the scenes to check the lighting, I've noticed that parts of the island look very pixelated. I knew that this wouldn't do for the final image, so I've rectified the pixel size and made adjustments where necessary.

Next week I'm heading to Stuttgart Animation Festival with a group of 9 other people, and will be there for the whole next week. I see this as an opportunity to improve my networking with professional studios, and plan to show a segment of my final major project at the festival. I will provide photos that I've taken at the festival next week.

Animation Direction AM50309-6: Week 14

After finishing all of Fishbone's key posing, it was time to start the animation process. My aim is to try and experiment with his motions to see what works and what doesn't work. Having already utilised animation layers the week before, I plan to use this technique for thee rest of the animation.

So far I have had varied success with the character animation, with some motions being hard to animate. As a consequence, I have sometimes tried to act out some of the motions to gain some perspective. I have also regularly checked the motions through playblasting to check the results.

Here's a video showing the progress I've mad so far. There's still some refinements I need to make but I will address them in the future.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 13

My aim this week was to try and finish the key posing for Fishbone. As my film is 2 minutes long, I wanted to make sure that the posing was completely right before I start animating. If I had time, I would actually begin animating him as well.

Overall, I've found key posing very useful, and I plan to use this process again for future 3D animations. There are still some poses that I have to work on, but these can easily be reworked when I start animating.

I finished the key posing early enough that I could actually start animating. I haven't really done a lot yet, but it's given me an opportunity to test out new techniques. One thing I've decided to do is use a new animation layer for modifying the key poses. This will allow me to edit the keys without deleting the original key poses. I've also been editing controls using the graph editor to avoid them looking to static.

I now progress onto week 14, and will continue animating Fishbone to better quality.

Animation Direction AM50309 - 6: Week 12

This week I plan to make a start on the animation process. Having experimented with key posing in the previous week, I decided to utilise a similar process in my animation. My aim is to key pose all of Fishbone's animation to the 2 minute timeframe.

As I was creating the key poses, I made sure to keep referencing to the original storyboard to avoid conflicting with the time frame. However, problems occurred in that some motions would require longer or shorter durations, so I made sure to accommodate them in the timeline. It was also an opportunity to insert some of the cameras in the scene as well.

Overall, I'm happy so far with this process, and feel that this will allow me to get a balanced animation.