Jasmine Masters, BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester.

Continuing on working outside of lessons, I've been working my way through the CG Artist's Toolkit's Lighting and Rendering 1: Arnold Pt2 . Below is what I have completed so far. Toolkit 2: Arnold Lighting ... by Jasmine Masters Skid with no Motion Blur: Skid with Motion Blur - Maya: Skid with Motion Blur - After Effects: See >>   Toolkit 2: Arnold Lighting and Rendering So Far for Part 1.

Moving forward with the Moom character rigs, I looked at constraining the Moon Jnr's assets to the Moom A Rig Connecting up Assets to Moo... by Jasmine Masters Here I also modelled Moom Sr's assets and constrained the the Moom B Rig. Moom Senior Models and Rig by Jasmine Masters

Moving forward with designing my lead mouse character, I looked at forming a style which could be used within the plot of the story. With this I came up with some rough designs (see below -grey) to start basing my ideas off of. Since the mice I drew before looked more life like; I begun trying to stylize my drawings for an animated universe. With this I also tried adding costumes and colour to try and see a direction in which to take my lead mouse. Through this I found the rough sketch were a start point to work from and the coloured designs could be interesting in terms of enforcing dramatic turning points in the storyline (such as when the air raid is happening/ when the mouse is trying to fix a problem.) From there I then begun experimenting with different forms to try and better grasp my character direction and style, with this I found it hard to envision as I still wanted my character to keep its 'mousey' features, but at the same time be able to convey expressions and moo...

I was given the task of modelling assets for Moom Jnr -  this consisted of hats, collars sleeves, hair and most importantly Moom Jnr's Walkman and Headphones. Moom Junior's Assets. by Jasmine Masters Moving forward I aim to complete Moom Jnr's UVs texturing and parenting up/ constraining Moom Jnr's assets to his body so that he is ready for animation. Here I also finalized the outfit for Moom Senior and what the next stage of modelling will be for our secondary character. With this I looked at Kim's designs and tried to pull different qualities from each design to form a coherent character design.

For this session, I was given the task of taking one of my groups existing storyboards from our collaboration project. With this I decided to go with our diner skit and looked at laying out the breakdown points, goal of the shot and action and beats within the shot.  Scene 1: Part 1: In Maya: Started with laying out the initial poses for the above mentioned breakdown. Then moved onto adding interpolation to the timeline and the in-between frames. Video Playblast: Made a start on the animation for the first panel, the timing at the end is too fast, but this could be due to not allowing enough space between the frames and extra clean up needed in the graph editor to slow that animation down.

Today we looked at creating a script from scratch. With this the class was split into our collaboration groups and we were each given an image to then come up with a storyline that follows either; a linear or nonlinear plot and includes stages from The Hero's Journey. Script Writing Presentation. by Jasmine Masters on Scribd

Continuing on with Quality in Storytelling , I began to look more at the concept of exploitation within cinema; which was briefly touched on in part 1 of quality storytelling. Studios would exploit certain topics within society to fill seats in cinemas to earn more money; an example of this would be B movies, which were movies that were made cheap and tend to have a variety of bad qualities about them (theses ranging from bad acting, sets, story lines and usually had a monster of some sort). So, Exploitation = Money. “An exploitation film is any film which tries to succeed financially by exploiting a current trend, a niche genre, or a lurid subject matter.” “Subjects which these films exploit include, but are not limited to, sex, violence , and romance . Exploitation films are generally low-quality B movies ." - Bold daring shocking true a history of exploitation films by Eric Schaefer   1900-1930’s – Pre-Code Exploitation: Early 1900 B Movies, many films that were created had a...

Quality within storytelling is a vital part within any story, whether this be within a book or film. To understand were cinema today has come from we have to go back to the 1890’s  to see where the first motion pictures came into play. 1890’s -1920’s: Going back to 1890’s when Pathe studios and French cinema first came about; films of the time were created as a way to show of the new inventions/technology created to view a moving image (thanks to the Lumiere Brothers and their adaptations of photography equipment to create Cinématographe motion picture system). During this era there were no standards as it was a new media, new technology; meaning there was nothing to compare it to as it was the first of its kind. From there came the Nickelodeon studios (1906) that popped up in the east coast (New York) with their flicker books and producers came into play. With this emergence came industry as film becomes something to make money off of. A few years later, around 1908 Thomas Ediso...

 This week we looked at 'Loosening up' Animation and Re-timing the Key frames. 'Loosening up' Animation & Re-timing video.

To start life drawing off, I looked at recreating the quick minute poses. With this I looked at capturing the form of the model rather than the finer details. from there I did a series of 30 Minuet sittings and looked at adding tonal detail and also focused on the form of the hands, feet and body position. Which consisted of redrawing the pose; of which I found easier as I had already drawn the model once.

Characters are a mix of complex qualities that can be hidden or personified to viewers by other means such as through personal nature or through a representation of a concept or quality. Actors are usually the ones to ‘find’ characters and build that characters internal/external dynamics to audiences so they can understand their personality/nature. So within stories characters are either designed to respond to events within the cinematic (e.g. Speed 1994) or are designed so that the characters cause the events that play out in the film (e.g. 12 Angry Men 1957). Meaning in some cases the audience really get to know the character, but in others they are just there to get the story across so don’t learn much about the character. Too much Plot? Some times in film you find stories to have ‘too much plot’ which can lead to having no character. For example, in Rambo: First Blood (1982) there are internal and external factors that drive the character John Rambo, creating a character with...