Video

This is an low quality version of our groups final animation

Week Twelve

On Monday of this week we finished adding the last details of our rooms and adjusting timings and music before creating a final render. We also merged our scenes and characters working together throughout the creation of the entire animation process therefore the merge of scenes were made easier due to the fact we used the dimensions and proportions as well as maintaining the scaling and style of our work. Time was spent arranging lighting and camera views, changing movements from static to animated jumping in both our characters, animating the playroom so the toys interacted with Jack as opposed to other characters and creating dry ice effects and falling white flakes in Thomas’ band scene.

This rendering process took hours as we rendered our scenes image by image to produce a high quality finish. Every scene was then edited in Premier Pro and we arranged the scenes to interact with music and surroundings. Throughout the animation the musicality is powerful and accentuates what is seen on screen, the movements of our characters and the exciting journey upon which they embark through their television screen. Without music, or this particular song, a cover of Danny Elfmans’ ‘What’s This?’ by Fall Out Boy, our animation would not be so entertaining nor amusing.

For this project Daniel and I listened carefully to the brief given by Craig Gough. We interpreted what we thought would work, an animated story with a beginning, middle and end which could be easily adapted and memorable for its audience. We also had to decide on a target audience and although the age range of our chosen demographics is quite large; age six through to age twelve, we engage almost all ages due to the uniquely styled rooms and characteristic models we created and the fairly smooth, albeit simple, animations we used throughout. Our video is entertaining and could be used throughout the entire YMCA group and it is not limited to one event or genre.

We presented an almost finished piece to our client, the YMCA staff members on Tuesday and the feedback we received was very positive. Our video made the client laugh and we were informed that our animation was something they would definitely consider using as it was something enjoyable to watch, fun for children and something that could be used by all departments because of the scope it had to adapt for different needs.

To conclude, I believe our small team of two achieved our objectives and those of the brief. We wanted to create a light-hearted, almost magical animation to encourage children from the ages of six through to twelve to visit the YMCA. The client asked for an advertisement they could send out to schools in the area to promote their facilities in such a way that they would be thought of as something other than a ‘grunge’ bar. Our animation portrays the Y Chelmsford as a fun and exciting place for young people to meet, make friends and enjoy themselves whilst doing something they love whether that is playing in a band or just playing. Had we had more time or to re do this project, I would only want to spend more time perfecting the characters movements, shapes and structures as they are not as perfect as I would like them to be.

Week Eleven

As the deadline draws near the group decided to start rendering scenes and putting together finishing touches to the living room, the wormhole transition, the Y corridor and each separate room.

The first render was of the living room. After I created the flash video for the YMCA to appear on the television the other group member created the wormhole and put the three scenes together. We rendered Jack and Thomas bored on their sofa as the advert comes on the T.V, the change in their facial expressions as they look hopeful and excited, and finally the brothers being drawn into the YMCA wormhole.




Then the wormhole landed Jack and Thomas in the YMCA’s Y shaped corridor whilst the camera followed them before banking right and viewing the door open into Jacks playroom.


A mural of the Noah’s Ark story was incorporated into the scene in order that the core values of the YMCA were subtly featured as part of the advertisement. The playroom is bright and colourful and entertaining for children up to the age of seven or eight and therefore well suited to our chosen demographic.

Week Ten

Once the character and its movements were as we desired we next began to model our rooms. As my character is the Jack I was modelling the playroom. We began by deciding on the dimensions of our rooms, how big they should be, what should be included, lighting techniques, textures and floor styles.

We decided to use metre measurements for the rooms and created large open spaces of around twelve by twelve meters with wooden floors, buttercup yellow walls for the playroom and industrial style textures for the School of Rock room.

The first piece of playroom equipment I made was the climbing frame. It was a simple structure of boxes which were manipulated into the various shapes I wanted. The slide was converted to an editable polygon and pulled into shape before adding turbosmooth to create a well formed shape.


The textures were created using a seamless wood texture import and changing the colouring to create a more entertaining structure for the children to play on. The slide was a two tone texture with the shininess and glossiness adjusted so it reflected in the light and interacted with the surrounding environment.


The end result is a wooden climbing frame which looks entertaining for the young children who, hopefully, will be inspired and encouraged to visit the YMCA.

Week Nine

Once the torso, legs, arms, head and facial features had been built the next stage was to rig the character. To do this the group decided the best method would be to skin and bone each character so we can move their limbs from their joints so all body parts move realistically.

We had several teething problems using this method. Both members of the group have not used this particular tool previously having only used 3DS Max to create static images. The most prominent difficulty was the characters bodies pinched terribly when we tried to sit them down or animate their limbs.

Due to their cartoon appearance, the characters moved in an inhuman fashion and this caused the deformation seen in this pink render of the file. To solve this problem we decided to motion tween the characters from one position to the next.
To do this we had to clone the original upstanding image and position the vertexes to create the shape we wanted. An example of the would be the change between sitting on the sofa with bored expressions, the change to anticipation in their faces and being drawn into the television by the exciting and magical YMCA advert.



This process worked incredibly well and although it was time consuming the end result was almost perfect movement in our characters. There was no pinching like there was when we skinned and boned our characters and the movements flowed smoothly from one to the next.

Week Eight

To divide the work the group split the storyboard in two. One member created the older brother Thomas and the School of Rock themed room whilst I created the younger brother Jack and the playroom for younger children.

First to build the character I scanned in a scaled image I had previously drawn and created a box the size of the torso. I then extended the arms and legs in the correct position and to scale by converting the box to an editable polygon, extruding the faces and positioning the legs slightly apart and the arms in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci’s renowned Vitruvian man. This was done so the character could be skinned and boned to enable him to move freely and mirrored to create an even character shape all over.


Once I applied the symmetry I created the head for my character. They were not designed to look real; I wanted to create an animation that was loosely based on the characters that star in Pixar animations. Obviously the standards would not be quite the same but the idea was to aim for the same style. As a result I had drawn a young boy with a rather large head and bright orange hair, huge eyes and a small button nose. To create the head I drew a sphere and then collapsed it, manipulating the vertexes until I had built the same potato shaped head in 3D as I had when I drew it in 2D.

Week Seven

Upon arrival at the YMCA Chelmsford, Craig Gough was way laid and the meeting postponed to a later date. In the meantime the storyboard was finalised and the character build began.

Thus far the story began in the family living room with the two brothers side by side on the sofa watching television after school. Two boys were introduced of different ages, the youngest Jack, age 6 and the older brother Thomas, age twelve. The aim for this is the brief given by Craig Gough mentioned that the Y offers a range of activities available to children of all ages. We believed that rather than focus on one particular event we would create an advertisement that would run for several minutes and suited being sent out to primary and the early years of secondary schools to promote the key events and activities provided for young people in the area. Consequently the younger brother, Jack, would be seen having fun in an animated playroom whilst the older brother, Thomas, would be involved in the ‘School of Rock’ night which is one of the most popular events.

To set the scene and introduce the YMCA, the camera was to be instructed to pan around the room and the viewpoint change to see the television behind the brothers’ heads. An advert would play on the screen and ask the boys and girls at home if they were bored.

Once asked if bored the camera will pan round to a close up of the brothers faces changing from being bored to an anticipated excitement.

The YMCA advert will then draw the boys into the television set and transport them via a wormhole created in 3DS Max to the Y. Where they will land in a Y shaped corridor and run down together. At the fork Jack will go to the right fork and Thomas to the left, the camera will bank and follow Jack to the playroom.

Here Jack will be surrounded by toys including a life-size soldier, a climbing frame and slide, a bouncing Pixar style ball, rocking horse and train set, amongst others. After he runs excitedly around the room and advertises to primary school children how fun it would be to go after school the camera will flip back to the corridor and follow Thomas into his room.

School of Rock is the best known and most popular night at the YMCA however Craig Gough mentioned that numbers are slowly dwindling and this is the reason we chose to include this particular night. The band will perform a rock version of ‘What’s This?’ from the animated film by Tim Burton; The Nightmare before Christmas. The song choice came about because the group is constantly inspired by Danny Elfman compositions and Tim Burtons mix of the real and surreal.

Another quality included in the advertisement is its ability it holds to be flexible, rooms can be added onto and running off of the corridor to promote other activities and events, the main rooms can be adjusted so they feature the latest night or club the Y wishes to stage.