Final Major Project
Evaluation – Red
By Miles Rodrigo
While I was unsure of what concept to make, I started off
looking at wood and metal textures for some ideas. From there I expanded my
idea in the concept of traditional ink painting. I wanted to combine both 3D
and 2D in the same concept but the question from me then was how was I going to
incorporate both since they are in different criteria of style. So I decided
why not make it more of a title sequence with a story behind it.
Then I went on to research for more similar styles, I
started off my research with calligraphic illustration since the use of ink
strokes in calligraphic art got my interest.
I then looked through title sequences for more references
and the style that I wanted to achieve from 300’s title sequence and the Bombay
Sapphire TV Spot Drift video was eye-catching because of the ink splat theme it
had produced. So I decided to base my concept on ink splat.
During that stage, I then started experimenting on practical
traditional experimentation as well as digital. With traditional methods such
as the use of ink by drawing landscapes in different views, the use of ink
splat effect and bold stroked ink illustrations using wooden ink pen.
I also used charcoal drawings of characters to attain a
similar look but it didn’t turn out well, as I wanted it to be so I decided to
stick with ink instead. I also tried to do some digital experimentation such as
making a toon outline in 3D to achieve that cartoony look that’s used in comics
and manga.
From this point, I have started to produce character looks
and drawn illustrations of clothes for the poster. I gathered all the concept
of achieving the manga look since manga is the equivalent form of comics. I
have produced experimentations of character hairstyle, clothing, and character turnaround
for 3D production later. This prepared me to make the post-production of my
poster so I looked at other poster examples and produced a 4-sided poster of
Red (the main protagonist).
With ink as the main concept I have decided to do a splat
effect on the characters’ clothes and appearances as well, to see if the whole
concept goes with it or not and it turned out to be as effective as the toon
outline
I then move on to the pre production of the animation and
started off as presenting the camera and character movement as simple actions
in 3D. This is to visualise the actions from the storyboard made earlier.
This is where more digital experimentations are made and I
have made a 2D ink splat picture in Photoshop, exported as .png file to make it
have basic movements in after effects along with pre-rendered character scenes with
toon outline applied to them.
I’ve looked at the method of having a luma-inverted effect
on top of the imported rendered scenes layer with an ink splat .mov file as
track matte and it turned out to be as I wanted the whole aesthetics to be.
With this method being very effect, all I have to worry now
is the style of how the characters will be represented on top of the track
matte luma invert composition.
I experimented on the traditional frame-by-frame rotoscope
animation using Photoshop on top of the pre-rendered scene and the effect
wasn’t bad but it looked too noisy for the whole concept and pace of the animation.
I also did the same method in black and white with red outlines to identify
that this character is Red the main protagonist.
I decided to pursue more on the toon outline of the
character scenes and looked through more on it’s cel-shade techniques using
Maya and I have recently found out about the circle highlight shader technique that
games such as Killer 7, Viewtiful Joe and Okami use, aesthetically.
I am quite happy of how the ink theme went with the method
of cel shade using circle highlight shader that Maya’s mental ray renderer provided
so far, so I’ve decided to composite it with luma invert altogether with the
characters and the scenes in after effects.
To finalise everything, I have decided to use final cut as
my main video editing programme in terms of adding sounds and looked through
final cut’s video filters and I’ve liked most of them, including indie red
(shown in my blog for picture samples), vignette effect, 1980s sepia colour
tones, but what I didn’t expect was the crosshatch filter that caught my eye
for it’s aesthetics because it looked like the animation was made out of paper
and this is where the combination of 2D and 3D comes that I’ve wanted to
achieve on the earlier stages.
The ink splat that divides the characters, such as the
outlines used in comics completely stands out with the crosshatch filter in
hand and this sums up the addition of crosshatch filter to the animation’s
composition and I have finalised it then.
To conclude this evaluation, the project was a tough start
at first but at the end there were unexpected compositions that I didn’t expect
to find in final cut, I have enjoyed experimenting different methods and
producing this project.
