Design Exploration - Final Compilation

24 April 2024 - 24 Jul 2024  / Week 1 - Week 14
Leem Sejin / 0362419
Design Exploration / Bachelor of Design (Honour) in Creative Media
Final Compilation

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INSTRUCTION

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TASK

Week 1

This week, we get brief about the module, and we are tasked to come out with a proposal :
choose give SDG goals and came out with playful design.

SDG Goals : Life below water
- Marine pollution

The ocean is in a state of emergency as increasing eutrophication, acidification, ocean warming and plastic pollution worsen its health. I read about the webcomics about litter pollution and how it affects the creatures in early 2010, such as dying due to plastics or lost its habitats. The story reminds me for a long time because some of the images ( such as litter mountain on the ocean / creatures are dying due to disposable plastics ) are that shocking to me. However, littering issues is not solved until now.

What is "playful" to me?

Personally, playful seems like colourful ( primary colours and secondary colours), large action animation, irregular shape, interactive with users, playful experience when they are young ( eg.games)

Idea 1: 

I want to target audience : Targeted audience : young adults in their 20s. Many of young adults remind of their playful times : whenever they play pixel games (eg.nintendo game series, stardew valley ) they are reminded of their playful times when they were young. Since I never done pixel art before, I want to give a challenge.

Week 2

Ideation

Idea 1: pixel games + Hologram art

I want to target audience : Targeted audience : young adults in their 20s. Many of young adults remind of their playful times : whenever they play pixel games (eg.nintendo game series, stardew valley ) they are reminded of their playful times when they were young. Since I never done pixel art before, I want to give a challenge.

AR animated postcards

Targeted audience : Teenage - young adults
Animated AR postcard to give a surprise to the audience
I saw from the twitter, when I clicked the image, there is a hidden images behind, and give a surprise. To use this idea, I want to create the normal sea creatures and when audience scanned the postcard, animation of creatures who suffered with the plastics/litters

Fig 1.1 Proposal draft

Week 4

During the consultation, Ms anis said my rationale is not strong enough so I did a further research, and decided to do animation video for final project, in order to submit for the Taiwan competition.

Fig 1.2 Synopsis first draft

My first draft is a story of the fish who interest in the city life, but i receive a comment that it is similar to the little mermaid. So I reverse the story

Fig 1.3 Revised story

Week 5

For this animation, I choose to go with cute style, so that the audience make the expectation that the film going to be humorous, and going to be surprised by the ending and it will remind to audience mind for a long time.

Fig 1.4 Reference

Also, in order to fit into the playful theme, I decided to create funny and vibrant animation. Hence my direction for the character is rounded shape with long arms and legs.

For the background, I recycle some of the assets from past projects for underwater scene.

Week 6

Based on the synopsis, i draw out the storyboard. I refer to the "finding nemo" for chasing scene.

Fig 1.5 " Finding Nemo" Reference

Fig 1.6 Storyboard 

After that, I exported them into jpeg and make it into animatic for timing and presentation for next week

Fig 1.7 Pitch video

Week 7

This week is proposal presentation, and I compile all the design elements and animatic video.

Final Proposal Submission

Fig 1.8 Proposal

Week 8 - Week 13

Production

Character

Fig 1.9 Character sketches

As my design direction is cute and simple style, I sketch out different body shapes. While sketching the characters, I make sure that the character has long arms so that it is able to rig and make funny movements. 

After several sketches, I decided to stick with rounded body shape with large eyes.

Fig 1.10 Finalised character

While colouring the character, I choose bright and primary colours since most of the scene happen in underwater, and I want to make a strong and contrast colours to make it visible.

Fig 1.11 Vectorised character

After cleaning up the character, I moved to adobe illustrator for vectorise. Also, I create different shape of mouth and eyes for facial expression.

Environment

For the environment, I recycled my past projects and redraw some of the props like rocks and coral.

Especially, for the long shot of exploring the ocean, I started with sketch with lighting and coloured them with blue monotone.

Fig 1.12 Underwater Sketches

Fig 1.13 Final Underwater scene

To save time, I recycle the elements for the rest of the underwater scene.

Rigging

I researched how to rig in after effect and many people suggest " Duik Bassel" to rig. I searched several tutorial and after several trials, I managed to rig the main character.

Fig 1.12 Duik Bassel Testing

However, I find that rigging is not smooth enough, and do not have enough time to study about this plugin. Hence, I switched to different ways to animate

In adobe illustrator, I separate all the body parts into different layers ( eg. forearm, wrist, hand ) and import the file into after effect. I changed the pivot point of the each layers, and animate them with rotate and scale tool

Fig 1.13 Layers separated

Fig 1.14 Testing the movement

I saved the files as " character rig " and import them into different ae files for animation.

Animation

While animate the character with rotate and scale tool, I explore different effects in after effect

I refer to several youtube video to create underwater, camera shake and 3d camera movement

Fig 1.15 Reference 1

FIg 1.16 Reference 2

I create water bubbles with CC Particle II and adjust its radius and gravity rate to show that water bubbles are coming up. Then I duplicate them into different scene.

Fig 1.17 CC particle II Exploration

Fig 1.18 Bubble testing

Also, I added camera shakes when the fish open its mouth

Sound

Before I start to edit the sound, I write down what kind of sounds needed for the animation, and searched them through freesound.org and youtube sound library.

Fig 1.19 Sound list

For the character's voice, I recorded myself through tascam recorder, and edited them in the Adobe Audition. As my art style is cute, I adjust my voice with pitch.

Fig 1.20 Sound design process

Fig 1.21 Adjustment of voice

Submission for TISDC

For the competition, we have to create poster and trailer as well.

Poster

For the poster, I recycle the existing rocks and seaweed to create underwater, and the front I placed the main character swimming through. To give a surprise, I create the shadow of the monster fish, looking at the character

Fig 1.22 Poster

I consulted with Ms Anis, and she suggest to change the position of the title, and make a smile for the monster fish.

This is the final poster design

Fig 1.23 Final Poster

Trailer

For the trailer, I planned to show the advertisement of the ocean, main character swimming and ended up with screaming.

Fig 1.24 Trailer storyboard

I draw out really rough storyboard, and cut out some of the senes and just compile it.

Final Trailer

Fig 1.25 Final Storyboard

Week 14

This week, I spent time to finish up the presentation slide.

Final Presentation Slide

Fig 1.26 Final Presentation pdf

Week 15

As I have not satisfied with the ending scene, I modified the scene by placing the multiple litters on the top of the monster fish.

Fig 1.27 Refined Monster Fish

Also, I added the shape of mouth and eyes with the bottle caps.

Fig 1.28 Vectorised bottle cap

Final Animation

Fig1.29 Final animation

  

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FEEDBACKS

Week 7

Timing need to be adjusted, some of the scene is quit long.

Week 10

Adjust some of the scene ( tada scene. underwater exploration ), make it shorter, and make more expression when character close up.

Week 14

Like the animation timing, but still need to improve on the ending scene and there is too much squeeze when character hit of the monster fish. 

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REFLECTION

This is my first experience that produce the animation film by myself. This module was really enjoyable because I can explore different functions in After effect and use my animation skills to complete the film. During the ideation, I was struggle to come out with interesting story, but I really enjoyed in production stage. It gives opportunities to search different animation skills and do experiment. However, time management was big challenges, since I have to do other assignments as well.