Poseidon Rising Inspiration

Since George is wanting this project to be a hyper realistic cinematic short it will be a good idea to research some already existing hyper real trailers.

To start off, the absolute masters in hyper realistic trailers: Blizzard

World of Warcraft Warlords of Draenor Cinematic Trailer

Something to pick up on with all these trailers but can be especially seen in the one above is of how intricate the facial movements are, something I will have to pay special attention to when animating.

Next up is the trailer for the game:

Lords of the Fallen

On this trailer the fight sequence is of special merit to be appreciated, again something that will need a lot of refining in my animation to achieve ultimate realism. There are also so really nice shots in this short that help build tension and reveal information in unique ways.


Dark Souls 2 Trailer

Although in this trailer the faces are covered for all the scenes meaning no facial animation, there is still a lot of complex body mechanics that is to a very high standard.

Finally even though being an awful game series, they do make a good trailer:

Risen 3: Titan Lords Trailer

This is a good example of the kind of scene we want to set with two characters fighting in a temple arena that finishes in impossible odds.

Research - Pose Ideas

Collaboration Project - Poseidon Rising

As the brief says that we have to do at least two collaboration projects I will be working on a project with George Skodras's and Ben Jones. I have worked with them previously in the Red Bull advert project and am looking forward to working with them again.

The title of the project in Poseidon Rising and the general synopsis is as follows:

Set in modern times Greece, the Greek gods are now living among the people withdrawn into solitude after having their powers seized away from them. With a new force ruling the lands the gods are forced to live a mortal life however at the time of the new millennium, Poseidon the god of the sea, begins to gain his powers back. Sensing this he returns to his beloved temple however upon arrival is encountered by an archangel; a dark minion of the current ruling power. The archangel warns Poseidon to leave however he resists, they fight and finally are broken up by the appearance of an army of archangels. The final shot is a shot of Poseidon looking at the large army knowing the odds are against him, but suddenly thunder storms start to accumulate behind him leading to a smirk from Poseidon; Zeus is coming. CUT

This will be a large project with multiple people involved as George (Director) is planning on making it as realistic as possible with a lot of visual effects like smoke, dust and water. This means that we will need to enquire about working with some students on the VFX course.

However my next steps as animator are to start thumb nailing some scenes and planning out the animations as well as storyboarding.

New Project Brief

We have been assigned a new project an uni, this is the brief:

'Create pre-production for the equivalent of 4 projects. Project production and post-production will be part of AA3D02 Final Major Project Production. At least two of the four projects must be collaborations projects, the others can be personal projects.' 

Main Points:

• Each project is to be a month long 
• We can choose from artist, rigging, animation, directing
• Its solely up to us what we do

As I am mainly wanting to animate most of my projects will be animation, however in order to keep developing my other skills I will also be doing some modelling and rigging.

Here is my project break down:

 

Rigging and Modelling Reels

Although I wish to specialise in animation it is also important to showcase my other skills that I have acquired including rigging, modelling and texturing. Therefore in order to do this I need to have separate showreels for both rigging and asset making.

So to start off here are some good examples of Rigging showreels that I have found:



The first being a reel by Matt Schiller featuring a good array of skills from advanced realistic facial rigging with the use of motion capture and then exaggerated toon rigging with squash and stretch attributes. Each clip also features a helpful label describing what exactly is in motion at that particular point for instance 'Layered IK/FK ctrls'.

Here is a good showreel by Evelyn Seng which has an interesting and nice way of interchanging between pieces of work; she shows them one by one but in between features a little animation where the character interacts with the next in line character as if they are all queueing for something. This is a good way of keeping the audience engaged as it can get a little tiresome looking at rigging demo's.

Here is the final in the rigging segment of this post by Khaled Samhan. What I like about this showreel is that similar to the previous is that in between the individual rigging demos he features small animation segments like walk cycles. They are first shown normally and then shown with the controllers attached and rendered, this is a nice way of reinforcing the content of the showreel and what its actually about.

  

Now its time to see some Modelling showreels.

Here is very good show reel by Romain Chauliac featuring some high quality industry standard work. The main thing I like about this portfolio other than the incredible work, is that he teases his most prized work at the beginning by only showing the back of a beautifully lit superman, it is only shown until right at the end. A very good technique that keeps the audience interested and also encourages to watch again as it can be played in a loop.

Here is another reel by Johan Lithvall, which although the quality of work is not quite up to the previous' standards it does however features nice presentation techniques of having a full body turnaround on one side and a close up on the other with a fade between the two. A definite bad point about this showreel however; is that the quality of work is substantially better in the second half than the first. This is a bad idea as the employer will see the first half and probably not watch the rest as they will already have a bad impression of the level of work.

The final reel in this post is by Danu Navarro which is more of a cartoony modelling show reel. I like this reel as it features some dynamic colours that are pleasing to the eye with the models being gold on a grey gradient background with letterbox black edges. He also includes four head poses of the characters before every turn around of which is a nice touch that helps link the show reel together as well as his four bar image at the beginning and end.

Character Animation Showreels

Here I will explore some more specific showreels for the industry sectors.

First up is Animation, here are a few showreels with varying student work that I think work well in showcasing their work:

Here is a showreel by Alaa Aldeen Afifah which has some really nice character animation with some great body mechanics. The clips are all very short as to not bore the audience and express a great variety of skills from up close facial animation to general full shot body movement. 

Another by Daniel Meitin who is a professional animator working in the industry including some top companies like disney. Here is his character animation reel that has some great expressive and fluid body motions. Another good thing to note is his clear labelling at the top of each clip with his individual responsibilities, something that is essential for when an employer is viewing your reel.

Here is a fantastic example of a creature animation showreel by Alex Yaremchuk. Mostly game animation however still useful to see as it gives a varied consensus. Another point to pick up on is the professional animation reels feature a lot of animations with only simple plain backdrops so that the attention can solely be put on the animation and nothing else.

Here is a pure body mechanics animation showreel by Tim Sormin. This is another showreel that again features a lot of simple backgrounds with normal texture-less boxes and obstacles so that they don't detract from the animation. It also has a nice clear and concise label at the bottom of every clip similar to Daniel Meitin's work however this tells us what project it was instead.

Examples of Animation Showreels

Here are some unique showreels that have great use of colour and text that make a nice dynamic display of imagery that constantly keeps the viewer engaged.

The first is Oliver Sin's 2013 Reel:

This is a great example of a good showreel: interesting and dynamic from start to finish. Oliver uses quick cuts to keep the audience on their toes accompanied with beautiful illustrated transitions between shots. At around 1:33 it is also in the perfect timing region for a showreel.

Here is another showreel by Steffen Knøsgaard

Similar to the previous this showreel features dynamic and engaging visuals that carry you across the work effortlessly. I will explore these ideas in my own showreel.