Flying along

I was out of the office on Friday (at the Media Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival, which was brilliant) but fortunately the computers continued work in my absence. Audability's music video is now fully rendered: every single frame has been produced.

The shot above shows a seagull who takes a friendly interest in Bili's activities and inspires him to keep reaching for the sky.

We're meeting Audability tomorrow to present the final animation to them. We've got a little post-production and editing to do today, and then it'll all be finished. The only thing we're waiting on is the final music track which I can't wait to hear!

Creative Edinburgh Brunch

Helen was one of the panel at this morning's Creative Edinburgh Brunch, part of the inaugural Edinburgh International Marketing Festival. John Denholm chaired a discussion about running a creative business in Edinburgh.

Also on the panel were Gavin Dutch of Loc8 Solutions, Ben Rashleigh of Vast Blue and Craig McMurdo, who took time out from a busy Fringe schedule to take part. Craig's a jazz singer; you can catch his show The McMurdo Sound tonight and tomorrow at The Outhouse.

Under a cloud

We've now got about a minute and a half of the Carry Them Along video rendered. It's looking good! Here's a shot showing the wasteland environment at the beginning of the video. (Click on the picture to see it full-size.)

Free Fridays shortlist

We're pleased to announce the shortlist for our next Free Fridays project:

• The Hepatitis C Trust - "get tested" campaign animation.


• Rainforest Saver - Inga system promotional animation.


• Trouble - music video for emerging talent compilation album.

We'll be talking to each shortlisted organisation this month and will announce the selected project on Monday 30 August, when applications for the next round will open.

Free Fridays offers zero budget animation to good causes. We're currently working on a music video for the band Audability, to be completed at the end of August. Audability is recording their debut album in Drake Music Scotland’s new recording studio in Craigmillar, Edinburgh.

First frame

We're rendering our first sequence of the Audability music video! This means that our computers are working away to produce the frames that will make up the final footage of the animation (while we're busy working on something else).

The still above is the very first frame rendered. The sequence we've set off is the final 40 seconds of the video, which sees Bili floating away by balloon to join some new friends.

Oh, and we've added textures to Bili to create his final look:



Update: I've had some requests for a higher-resolution version of the frame, so click on the small version to see it full-size (1024 x 576).

Leaning tower

If you've seen the concept art for the "Carry Them Along" music video you'll know it involves a small animated creature building, and climbing up, a tower of inflatable building blocks. It sounded pretty straightforward when we presented the idea to the band, Audability.

This week we actually had to build the tower. It turns out that piling up nearly 4,000 blocks into a cone-shaped tower is harder to do than talk about.

We realised fairly quickly that placing each block by hand would take far too long (and would be incredibly boring). We considered dropping the blocks into a cone-shaped container and hoping they stacked up well (there's a function called simulation within our software, 3DS Max, that allows this) but this tended to give irregular packing and big gaps.

We tore our hair out for a while.

Eventually, we realised that we needed a combination of placing the blocks by hand - quickly - and using simulation to settle them into place. I built a very regular cone-tower using various copy tools:



It's not quite what we wanted - it's far too perfect. Also, although you can't see it without zooming in, the way I've created each layer at an equal height above the previous layer means that there are often vertical gaps between blocks, meaning that a lot of the blocks appear to be floating in mid-air.

So, we then used simulation to apply gravity to the blocks and make them gently sit down onto each other. We had to do this in several stages (4,000 blocks is too many for my poor computer to think about at once!) - here's the top after simulation:



Once the whole tower had been allowed to settle, we have a cone with just the right amount of irregularity, where each block is resting on those below:

Bili gets virtual

We took the plasticine model of Bili, the star of the music video for Audability's "Carry Them Along", along to meet the band two weeks ago. He was made very welcome - and snapped on several mobile phone cameras!

The next stage was to create a computer model of Bili. We use the plasticine model to guide us as we build a three-dimensional mesh object in the computer. The model starts as a very rough appoximation...



...to which we gradually add detail...



...until we're happy with the final character:



Once the mesh is complete, a skeleton needs to be added and attached to the skin. We can then animate the character by moving its skeleton. Here's Bili with his bones exposed:



The last thing needed at this stage, before we can start animation, is that we prepare the character so that we can add colours and materials to it later. To do this, we have to flatten the model into a series of two-dimensional shapes. The square image file to the left of Bili is his "texture map". When we're ready we'll be able to add the design for how Bili should look to this image, then wrap it around the model.



If you'd like to see an example of a character model and her texture map, take a look at Adam's post Aileen unwrapped over at The Lost Book.

Introducing: Bili

This time last week I was at Animation Evolution, the 22nd annual conference of the Society for Animation Studies.

I may have been slacking off, but Adam was here in the studio working hard on Audability's music video, our regular Friday project. He was working to finalise the character design for our climbing creature. The creature has gained a name - at our last meeting with Audability, keyboard player John McAdie suggested Bili, so Bili it (he?) is.

This model was close to what we were looking for - the face and body shapes are working well. But, Bili's bag - now a satchel rather than a backpack - still isn't resolved. We've been struggling with this all the way through. We initially imagined Bili pulling inflatable building blocks from a backpack, but we designed the character with such short arms that this isn't physically possible.



We've decided to solve the problem by making Bili a marsupial. Even a creature with very short arms can reach a front pouch. As a side effect, I think it makes Bili look as if he/she/it is wearing dungarees, which is a look I like!



This week, we've both been starting to build elements of the computer model for the video. Adam's working on Bili while I make a beginning on the set...

Obstacles

Friday again! The studio has been shut for two weeks while we enjoyed the Edinburgh Film Festival, but this week it's been back to the grindstone. Today we've been developing the Audability music video. We've been working on a couple of elements - designing the set, in particular the obstacles that hem in the creature; and designing the creature itself.

The set design is coming along nicely - here are the first couple of sketches:





The character design needs a bit more work. We've modelled a few ideas in plasticine. The one on the left is the best so far, but we're not yet happy. There are issues with the proportions of the creature - we'd like it to have short, rounded limbs, but that means that it can't reach its backpack. The version in the set design sketches solves the problem by showing a satchel rather than a backpack.



We've also done sketches of key moments in the video that we've put against the music to produce a very (very!) rough animatic. We'll be showing this to the band next week - it's rough, but it gives an idea of how the action fits with the song.

Audability concept art

It's Friday, which means we've spent the day working on our current Free Fridays project - a music video for Audability.

For the last couple of Fridays we've been putting together ideas for the project, after two briefing meetings with the band. We presented the concepts this week. The good news was that we seem to have started by going in the right direction - David, John, Larry and Rick (assisted by Mariola, plus Chris who was doing work experience with Drake Music this week) liked all three of the ideas we presented. The even better news was that there was a clear winner: the band were unanimous in choosing the idea they want us to develop.

Here's the concept sketch for the winner: "Climb". This is for the song "Carry Them Along".


The story is that a small creature builds itself a tower out of inflatable building blocks and uses it to climb into the sky. It's all about being on top of things and chasing an idea, and we like the idea of this little weak creature changing its world. One of the ideas that came out of the meeting was that at the start the creature might face some huge obstacles (we talked about boulders or fences) that it would eventually be able to use as foundations for its tower.

The two options that didn't get the go ahead are "Walk" (also for "Carry Them Along) and "Fly" (for "Now the Time is Right").


"Walk" approaches the title and lyrics of "Carry them Along" more literally. There's someone being carried along in a spider-like walking contraption who strolls in front of an ever-changing backdrop. We enjoyed the idea of this person moving while sitting still, and that technology is assisting in opening up the entire world to him.


"Fly" relates to some of the feelings the band associate with the song "Now the Time is Right", which they performed at the opening of the Scottish Parliament. A flying ship travels around a fantastic country of castles in the sky, connecting places and people through brightly-coloured flags.

The original idea for "Fly" was very much inspired by Hayao Miyazaki (one of our heroes - animation director extraordinaire and co-founder of Studio Ghibli). A lot of his films feature flying machines, often in combination with flags rippling in the wind. It's a look we thought we could have fun working with.

Next up, we need to develop "Climb". This will involve character design and more concept art. We need to start to work out what will happen during the video. We also need to start thinking about some of the animation challenges we've set ourselves - inflatables are perhaps not the easiest thing to animate...