Learning Animation at SintLucas
Period #7
Period #7
Part of my study at SintLucas is to learn how to animate, for which we follow weekly animation classes every Monday and Thursday.
Our assignment for this period was split into three tasks: Collaborating with other students, accomplishing our learning goals, and researching current trends in the animation industry.
This Behance document aims to show you how I approached these assignments and what steps I took to finish them.
Our assignment for this period was split into three tasks: Collaborating with other students, accomplishing our learning goals, and researching current trends in the animation industry.
This Behance document aims to show you how I approached these assignments and what steps I took to finish them.
#1 - Collaborating with other students
The first part of this assignment was to collaborate with our classmates in order to learn how to properly communicate with others to form a functional team. We were assigned two partners at the beginning of every Thursday, one of them would receive a document of mine that contained a description, which they would then have to visualize, and the other student would be the one who would send me their description, which I then had to visualize.
For the first week, I was paired up with Jessie Habraken and Aaron Dekker. I was tasked to visualize Jessie's description, and Aaron was tasked to visualize mine.
Jessie Habraken sent me the following description via Microsoft Teams:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lila had always been fascinated by magic. Ever since she was a little girl, she would sneak into the library and read books about spells, potions, and enchantments. She dreamed of becoming a powerful mage, like the ones she read about in the stories. But magic was forbidden in her kingdom, and anyone who practiced it was hunted down by the king's soldiers. Lila knew the risks, but she couldn't help herself. She wanted to learn magic more than anything else in the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After reading through the description and carefully analyzing it, I proceeded to create these images in Adobe Photoshop:
For the first week, I was paired up with Jessie Habraken and Aaron Dekker. I was tasked to visualize Jessie's description, and Aaron was tasked to visualize mine.
Jessie Habraken sent me the following description via Microsoft Teams:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lila had always been fascinated by magic. Ever since she was a little girl, she would sneak into the library and read books about spells, potions, and enchantments. She dreamed of becoming a powerful mage, like the ones she read about in the stories. But magic was forbidden in her kingdom, and anyone who practiced it was hunted down by the king's soldiers. Lila knew the risks, but she couldn't help herself. She wanted to learn magic more than anything else in the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After reading through the description and carefully analyzing it, I proceeded to create these images in Adobe Photoshop:
At the same time, I wrote this description of a story that I had in mind, which Aaron then had to visualize:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The story starts off with the main character, a young farmer, living at a farm in medieval times.
The boy wakes up early in the morning from the crowing of his rooster coming from outside, shortly after which he gets out of bed, quickly gets dressed in his farming outfit, walks downstairs and eats breakfast with his mom and dad at the dinner table.
Once the boy and his parents have finished eating breakfast, the boy then goes into the next room, where he meets his dog and gives him a bowl filled with leftover meat.
The boy then proceeds to open the back door and enters the farm together with his dog.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once Aaron had read through it, he proceeded to create these images, also within Adobe Photoshop:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The story starts off with the main character, a young farmer, living at a farm in medieval times.
The boy wakes up early in the morning from the crowing of his rooster coming from outside, shortly after which he gets out of bed, quickly gets dressed in his farming outfit, walks downstairs and eats breakfast with his mom and dad at the dinner table.
Once the boy and his parents have finished eating breakfast, the boy then goes into the next room, where he meets his dog and gives him a bowl filled with leftover meat.
The boy then proceeds to open the back door and enters the farm together with his dog.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once Aaron had read through it, he proceeded to create these images, also within Adobe Photoshop:
The next week, I was paired up with Lisa Topalova. We would both have to exchange descriptions with each other, but this time we would have to make a single more detailed drawing of a random part of our descriptions.
Lisa's description was written in Dutch and can be read here:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Op een dag, als Nico van school naar huis loopt, ziet hij plotseling een vreemd voorwerp midden op de weg. Hij loopt dichterbij om een beter idee te krijgen van wat het is. Het vreemde voorwerp blijkt een gekreukelde brief te zijn, omwikkeld met een glimmend lint. Als hij hem openvouwt, leest Nico zoiets als: "Ik ben hier. Volg mij maar.”. Nico begrijpt niets van wat het is, wat het betekent, voor wie het bedoeld is, of hoe dit voorwerp überhaupt in zijn weg is gekomen. Hij humt en gooit dit vreemde boodschap-achtige ding gewoon ergens in de struiken, denkend dat het gewoon willekeurig afval is en dat iemand het hier achtergelaten heeft. Nico vervolgt zijn weg naar huis. Later, na twee dagen, besluit Nico tijdens de pauze op school, de lege bibliotheek binnen te gaan en hoort plotseling verdachte geluiden uit een van de oudste kasten komen, die naar alle waarschijnlijkheid al lang niet meer is geopend. Hij besloot daar te kijken en zag een portaal van waaruit een tovenaar naar hem keek en met zijn hand zwaaide. Nico was ongelooflijk geschokt en verrast. De tovenaar riep hem bij zich en probeerde hem ervan te overtuigen dat er al heel lang iets verbazingwekkends en chaotisch aan de gang was in deze school, iets dat absolute wanorde kon veroorzaken, en overtuigde hem ervan dat hij zonder Nico niet in staat zou zijn de chaos te kalmeren tot het te laat was.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once I had finished reading through the story, I picked a part that I thought wouldn't be too challenging to re-create, and proceeded to visualize it within Photoshop. The first version I created contained some text in order to better visualize the knocking part, but after some feedback I decided to get rid of those since some people thought it didn't fit very well and made the image look more like a storyboard rather than a final product.
Lisa's description was written in Dutch and can be read here:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Op een dag, als Nico van school naar huis loopt, ziet hij plotseling een vreemd voorwerp midden op de weg. Hij loopt dichterbij om een beter idee te krijgen van wat het is. Het vreemde voorwerp blijkt een gekreukelde brief te zijn, omwikkeld met een glimmend lint. Als hij hem openvouwt, leest Nico zoiets als: "Ik ben hier. Volg mij maar.”. Nico begrijpt niets van wat het is, wat het betekent, voor wie het bedoeld is, of hoe dit voorwerp überhaupt in zijn weg is gekomen. Hij humt en gooit dit vreemde boodschap-achtige ding gewoon ergens in de struiken, denkend dat het gewoon willekeurig afval is en dat iemand het hier achtergelaten heeft. Nico vervolgt zijn weg naar huis. Later, na twee dagen, besluit Nico tijdens de pauze op school, de lege bibliotheek binnen te gaan en hoort plotseling verdachte geluiden uit een van de oudste kasten komen, die naar alle waarschijnlijkheid al lang niet meer is geopend. Hij besloot daar te kijken en zag een portaal van waaruit een tovenaar naar hem keek en met zijn hand zwaaide. Nico was ongelooflijk geschokt en verrast. De tovenaar riep hem bij zich en probeerde hem ervan te overtuigen dat er al heel lang iets verbazingwekkends en chaotisch aan de gang was in deze school, iets dat absolute wanorde kon veroorzaken, en overtuigde hem ervan dat hij zonder Nico niet in staat zou zijn de chaos te kalmeren tot het te laat was.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once I had finished reading through the story, I picked a part that I thought wouldn't be too challenging to re-create, and proceeded to visualize it within Photoshop. The first version I created contained some text in order to better visualize the knocking part, but after some feedback I decided to get rid of those since some people thought it didn't fit very well and made the image look more like a storyboard rather than a final product.
At the same time when I was working on my drawings, Lisa was working on her version, which was based on this story that I had written:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The boy then proceeds to feed his farm animals, but before he could finish doing so, he heard his dog barking in the distance. He remembered that his dad trained their dog to only bark if an intruder broke into their home, so he grabbed his pitchfork and rushed to the location of the sound.
Once the boy reached the top of the hill, he spotted an old man wearing a long light-gray robe, standing near his dog.
The old man slowly looked up at the boy.
The boy asked the man what his reason was for being here, which the old man replied to by telling the boy that he was sent here by his boss to look for a young individual who was destined to defeat a great evil.
The boy questioned the man’s story, stating that he was just a farmer and had nothing to do with any adventuring kind of stuff.
The old man insisted, saying that he was certain he had found the right person. He warned the boy that his house would be attacked by an evil emperor from a faraway land at night and that his parents would be taken away.
The boy, thinking that the old man must be mentally unwell, told the man to get lost and headed back to the farm with his dog.
The old man slowly looked up at the boy.
The boy asked the man what his reason was for being here, which the old man replied to by telling the boy that he was sent here by his boss to look for a young individual who was destined to defeat a great evil.
The boy questioned the man’s story, stating that he was just a farmer and had nothing to do with any adventuring kind of stuff.
The old man insisted, saying that he was certain he had found the right person. He warned the boy that his house would be attacked by an evil emperor from a faraway land at night and that his parents would be taken away.
The boy, thinking that the old man must be mentally unwell, told the man to get lost and headed back to the farm with his dog.
Later that night, the boy was awakened by the sound of his dog barking yet again.
The boy got out of bed, thinking the old man must have returned again, but soon discovered that his house had burst into flames.
The boy rushed around the house looking for his parents, but was unable to find them anywhere. He then heard screaming coming from outside, after which he rushed out the door where his dog was waiting and saw a large carriage with two long reddish banners riding off into the distance.
The old man approached the boy again, telling him that he had warned him of this event. He explained that it was the emperor who was responsible for this and that if the boy would ever want to see his family again, he would have to go through several training sessions.
The boy, now believing the old man, agreed and decided to follow him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once Lisa was finished, she sent me this image via Teams, depicting the part of the story where the boy rushed out of his burning home:
The boy got out of bed, thinking the old man must have returned again, but soon discovered that his house had burst into flames.
The boy rushed around the house looking for his parents, but was unable to find them anywhere. He then heard screaming coming from outside, after which he rushed out the door where his dog was waiting and saw a large carriage with two long reddish banners riding off into the distance.
The old man approached the boy again, telling him that he had warned him of this event. He explained that it was the emperor who was responsible for this and that if the boy would ever want to see his family again, he would have to go through several training sessions.
The boy, now believing the old man, agreed and decided to follow him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once Lisa was finished, she sent me this image via Teams, depicting the part of the story where the boy rushed out of his burning home:
In the following week after that, we were tasked with creating concept art for a character based on the description of our partners. This time, I was paired up with both Lisa Topalova and another classmate whose full name I cannot find since the chat room we made seems to have recently been deleted.
The character description that I made for this anonymous individual was also written in Dutch and can be read here:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dit karakter werkt op een familieboerderij rondom het middeleeuwse tijdperk, hij is een jongvolwassen man van 16 tot 23 jaar oud met blauwe ogen, medium-lang blond haar en een lichte huidskleur. Hij is 1,81 meter lang en draagt een paar lange bruine laarzen die deels zijn bedekt in grote vlekken van aarde en kunstmest, en een lange donkerblauw gekleurde overall gemaakt uit hetzelfde materiaal als een spijkerbroek met twee zilver gekleurde knoppen waar de schouderbanden verbinding maken met de rest van de overalls. Onder zijn overalls draagt hij een wit shirt met korte mauwen, een roosterpatroon van blauwe lijnen en een lijn van witte knoppen die verticaal over het midden van het shirt gaan. Hij heeft een oude, versleten, stalen driepuntige strooivork bij zich die hij gebruikt voor het verzorgen van zijn boerderijdieren en zelfverdediging. Ten slotte draagt hij twee dikke bruingekleurde handschoenen over allebei zijn handen zodat hij zijn handen niet vies maakt tijdens het verzorgen van zijn boerderijdieren.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sadly, I never received a reply to my message before the chat room was removed, so I don't have any final result to show here.
The character description that I made for this anonymous individual was also written in Dutch and can be read here:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dit karakter werkt op een familieboerderij rondom het middeleeuwse tijdperk, hij is een jongvolwassen man van 16 tot 23 jaar oud met blauwe ogen, medium-lang blond haar en een lichte huidskleur. Hij is 1,81 meter lang en draagt een paar lange bruine laarzen die deels zijn bedekt in grote vlekken van aarde en kunstmest, en een lange donkerblauw gekleurde overall gemaakt uit hetzelfde materiaal als een spijkerbroek met twee zilver gekleurde knoppen waar de schouderbanden verbinding maken met de rest van de overalls. Onder zijn overalls draagt hij een wit shirt met korte mauwen, een roosterpatroon van blauwe lijnen en een lijn van witte knoppen die verticaal over het midden van het shirt gaan. Hij heeft een oude, versleten, stalen driepuntige strooivork bij zich die hij gebruikt voor het verzorgen van zijn boerderijdieren en zelfverdediging. Ten slotte draagt hij twee dikke bruingekleurde handschoenen over allebei zijn handen zodat hij zijn handen niet vies maakt tijdens het verzorgen van zijn boerderijdieren.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sadly, I never received a reply to my message before the chat room was removed, so I don't have any final result to show here.
-
Meanwhile, however, Lisa sent me her character description, which was in the form of two separate images, but did also contain some text that described how the character looked:
After taking a look after the reference images and looking up some examples online, I eventually ended up making this rendition:
Finally, in the last week of part 1, we were tasked with creating an animated background based on the description of our partner. This time, I was paired up with Nivard Vercoulen and Juultje Smits. Nivard Vercoulen would have to create a rendition of my description, and I would have to make a rendition of Juultje Smits's description.
The description that I ended up sending to Nivard was again written in Dutch, and can be read here:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Een lang, vlak, grijsgekleurd grindpad met twee lange stenen muren aan de linker- en rechter kant, geschilderd in een banaan-gele kleur. De toppen van de muren zijn bedekt in platte, grijze, vierkantvormige stoeptegels. Achter de muren zijn de daken van een aantal gebouwen te zien. De muren zijn voor een klein deel bedekt in mos en klimop planten.
De lucht is lichtblauw met geen enkele wolken in zicht, en er is geen enkele persoon in de omgeving.
De bakstenen muren zijn bedekt in condens druppels van de koude lucht. Aan het einde van het pad, waar het grind langzaamaan steen bij steen in een pad van aarde en mos veranderd, stoppen de muren en de huizen aan de linker- en rechterkant abrupt en tonen ze een lange bergketen achter zich. De omgeving om de gebouwen heen is een grote, groene grasvlakte tot aan de bergketen.
In de verte is een groot standbeeld te zien dat uit een soort zwartgekleurd marmer materiaal is gemaakt. Het standbeeld is van een man met een lang zwaard en een Franse keizershoed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sadly, I have not yet received a reply from Nivard containing the background, so I have nothing to show here as of now, but I will make sure to update this page once I do get a response.
The description that I ended up sending to Nivard was again written in Dutch, and can be read here:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Een lang, vlak, grijsgekleurd grindpad met twee lange stenen muren aan de linker- en rechter kant, geschilderd in een banaan-gele kleur. De toppen van de muren zijn bedekt in platte, grijze, vierkantvormige stoeptegels. Achter de muren zijn de daken van een aantal gebouwen te zien. De muren zijn voor een klein deel bedekt in mos en klimop planten.
De lucht is lichtblauw met geen enkele wolken in zicht, en er is geen enkele persoon in de omgeving.
De bakstenen muren zijn bedekt in condens druppels van de koude lucht. Aan het einde van het pad, waar het grind langzaamaan steen bij steen in een pad van aarde en mos veranderd, stoppen de muren en de huizen aan de linker- en rechterkant abrupt en tonen ze een lange bergketen achter zich. De omgeving om de gebouwen heen is een grote, groene grasvlakte tot aan de bergketen.
In de verte is een groot standbeeld te zien dat uit een soort zwartgekleurd marmer materiaal is gemaakt. Het standbeeld is van een man met een lang zwaard en een Franse keizershoed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sadly, I have not yet received a reply from Nivard containing the background, so I have nothing to show here as of now, but I will make sure to update this page once I do get a response.
-
At the same time, my other partner, Juultje Smits, sent me his description of what kind of environment he would like to see:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barren flat wasteland with a single yellow flower within the dry sand, with a long stretch of broken down road leading to an overgrown city in the distance, with run down buildings and overgrown houses. It's dawn, with the sun coming up behind the city, basking it in a warm light with harsh shadows. In front of the city is an iron fence through which the viewer looks out over the city. It's a bit windy, so some of the sand could be getting kicked up by it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After I had fully read through his description, I decided that I would try to chance things up a bit and make the environment within Blender, since I have over four years pf experience with this program and believed that I could make it look a lot more interesting that way.
I first created a couple of test renders that I sent to Juultje to get some feedback and make sure that I was going in the right direction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barren flat wasteland with a single yellow flower within the dry sand, with a long stretch of broken down road leading to an overgrown city in the distance, with run down buildings and overgrown houses. It's dawn, with the sun coming up behind the city, basking it in a warm light with harsh shadows. In front of the city is an iron fence through which the viewer looks out over the city. It's a bit windy, so some of the sand could be getting kicked up by it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After I had fully read through his description, I decided that I would try to chance things up a bit and make the environment within Blender, since I have over four years pf experience with this program and believed that I could make it look a lot more interesting that way.
I first created a couple of test renders that I sent to Juultje to get some feedback and make sure that I was going in the right direction.
After that, I rendered the full video as a PNG sequence, imported it into Adobe Premiere Pro, and turned it into an MP4 file. While rendering overnight, however, Blender suddenly crashed at around frame 42 of 60, resulting in an unfinished render with some slight artifacts. Because of this, I had to edit the video a bit in order to make it loop correctly, which sadly resulted in some slightly linear movements.
Due to several strict deadlines and me getting sick for multiple days, I was unable to fix this issue before the deadline of the assignment arrived.
Due to several strict deadlines and me getting sick for multiple days, I was unable to fix this issue before the deadline of the assignment arrived.
#2 - Accomplishing our learning goals
The second part of this assignment required us to create three separate learning goals for ourselves, which we would have to accomplish during our seventh period at SintLucas.
I had already created a post on this a couple of weeks back that takes a deep dive into how I reached these three goals, which can be read here:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/193534563/Animation-Research
(This link may need to be copied and pasted manually)
I had already created a post on this a couple of weeks back that takes a deep dive into how I reached these three goals, which can be read here:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/193534563/Animation-Research
(This link may need to be copied and pasted manually)
#3 - Researching current trends in the animation industry
The third and final part of this assignment required us to do research on some of the most recent trends within the animation industry, and post our findings here on Behance.
Just like in part 2, I had already made a post about this at an earlier date. This post can be found via the following link:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/194165185/Animation-Trend-Research
(This link may also need to be copied and pasted manually)
Just like in part 2, I had already made a post about this at an earlier date. This post can be found via the following link:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/194165185/Animation-Trend-Research
(This link may also need to be copied and pasted manually)
