Nicholas McLaughlin Blog

What initially caught my intertest was the animation of Norman McLaren and how he inbued personality, humour and motion with the simplest animations where others wouldnt have thought to put it, like his work in Rythmetic.

I have been a fan of Pixars work for as long as I can remember and their ability to bring warmth and love to computer graphics and even the simplest of objects and characters. I’d love to even hint at that sense of personality and joy the bring.

Going forward in this project, I want to better my skills at Autodesk Maya and begin learning some animation basics that I can call upon, maybe not purely in animation but in future projects I might use it on.

Workshop 01

Introduction to 3D Modelling and Autodesk Maya.

I have used Autodesk Inventor in the past so hopefully my skills are transferable even if a little bit rusty.

They are not transferable and it does not come naturally but with some practice like everything I can learn them and get to a decent level for just picking them up. I’ll just need to practice.

Initial ideas for my diorama are maybe a little too adventurous. After the workshop I was thinking of castle interiors and long sweeping shots of structures that can be created using the basic shapes.

And another was to use inspiration from my creative coding 01 projects. The monochromatic transparent disks are in the air but now in motion because it’s simple enough shapes with simple animation. The rendering of the materials might take quite a long though, if reflective surfaces take longer than usual.

Workshop 02

After the workshop I was trying to get some extra practice in for 3D modeling like I have done in the past to get better at it. Im not sure what to do as my final idea but I think after the workshops I’ll have a better idea. Considering how I’m feeling in the workshops i’ll definitely need to reign in the ideas and keep it simple.

Workshop 03

Camera and Lighting. What really captured my attention was how after the camera and the lighting the scene seemed to come to life and looked more tangable.

I would like to use the camera in exciting ways in my project. With the use of camera and lighting, you could really play with perspective and put the audience in situations that you wouldn’t be able to any other way.

Below is a message with a quick note on my initial ideas and where to take my scene.

Workshop 04

Rendering time will need to be a big consideration now, referring to the time I have left and the fact that I don’t have my final scene yet. I think the idea of the personality shapes will be simple enough but still convey what I want.

Below is a quick animation and render test.

https://videopress.com/v/hIl2kEEY?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&muted=true&persistVolume=false&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

Final

The final idea started as bringing a number of different personalities and emotions to basic primitives, but as I worked on it more and more, it became more and more apparent that with my current stills and the time remaining that bringing a Pixar-level of character and animation might be a little too adventurous.

So after simplification and removing the character animation I still tried to keep a sense of motion and colour in each of the objects, and even if not as obvious as I would have liked, I still feel that some of the initial ideas for personality has sneaked through.

The weight of the yellow, the energy and speed of the red and the light, airy feeling of the blue.

Final: Shapes

https://videopress.com/v/vVrP9e9m?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&loop=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

After a number of iterations and a number of simplifications, my final rendering is a short animation of primitive shapes with motion, some realistic and some erratic.

I feel that the theme of emotion and autonomy I was aiming for has been diluted, but that was because my aim was a bit too high and my concept was too literal. Maybe the final outcome would have been more obtainable if I had gone with a more abstract concept.

Evaluation

If I had more time, I’d like to spend more time on each aspect of my scene and use them to relate to my theme. Looking at how the lighting angles, shadows and light temperature can convey emotions. How camera angles and perspective can make the audience feel a certain way… without making the audience feel sick.

And again, if I had more time, I’d love to spend more time giving each primitive a real personality, working on the animation and fine tweaking it.

I need to keep trying to be less logical and more conceptual. I’ll bring this through to future projects and future studies.