Pixels

Pixels

Pixels is a short animated film about the video game characters and elements essentially, "invading" the real world. The film doesn't have a set story, but rather sets up very well crafted senarios of invasion. There is an instance of the space invaders turning taxi cabs into pixels, and Pac-Man riding along the metro eating stations, as he would eat the white dots in the video game. The 3D aspect of this film is something I would really like to learn how to do. The pixel effect is a breath of fresh air, I've never seen anything like it. One thing I am assuming the creators did in the creation of this film is create masks to place the special effects, and I recently learned how to do that a couple of months ago. The effects and cinematography was very well done. However, I would like to see a fully-developed story made out of this concept that isn't Adam Sandler's sad excuse for an adaption. I look forward to onemoreproduction's future creations. 

Jean, Patrick. "PIXELS / The Short Film." Vimeo. Onemoreprod, 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.

https://vimeo.com/10829255

A Simple Man

   This is the result of the project I started back in first semester. My objective was simply to model a man, and animate a walk cycle. Due to time constraints, I wasn't able to finish modeling his ear and hair. He came out okay nonetheless. I didn't have much time to animate the walk cycle after modeling, so I went with a simple walk cycle.

   For coming up with the design of the model, I contacted my fellow animator, Erick Vidal, for a design. 

 

This is the design he came up with. Unfortunately, the nose and neck don't line up perfectly. I had to take this into account while modeling and improvise. I thank Erick for his time and drawing skills (they are much better than mine). I highly recommend working with him. As small animators, we are trying to create the best content possible, and working with a fellow upcoming animator is the best way to do that. 

I covered the modeling and weight painting phase in a previous blog post. Scroll down to read more!

Throughout this project I learned to save frequently due to the small chance of a project corruption, and to be patient. Taking time to learn how every step is done is key to improving as an animator.

If there was anything I could've done differently was to model the arms horizontally instead of vertically. This caused me many issues while rigging. Something I would've liked is more time, however that isn't always possible.

I did improve my skills as a modeler. However, I decided this isn't the route I want to take with animation. I really enjoy rigging, and it is definitely something I want to explore.

Overall, I wasn't satisfied with the end result. When playing the animation, the foot would glitch out at around 120 frames, and I had to work my way around it. The model looks awkward in some places such as the elbows and the gluteus Maximus, and he has solid ears! I will take the skills I learned and apply them in my future projects. 

This semester, I will explore the realm of motion graphics and special effects.

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