Rogue One's use of CGI Characters opinion Piece (spoilers)

Spoilers for Rogue One A Star Wars Story:

Rogue One takes place during the era of the original trilogy that we all know and love. When that was first revealed many fans wondered how many familiar characters from previous movies we would see in the movie. It would feel weird to not have familiar characters considering where this movie took place.Disney and Lucasfilm said nothing to hint at the return of legacy characters, as they kept saying that it was a stand alone movie with its own characters. However as trailers started to be released fans spotted some familiar characters like Mon Monthma, Bail Organa, and even Darth Vader. This made fans believe that those characters were the only legacy characters in the movie, but it was not everyone, two more important characters from the original trilogy also made there return.

One of those characters is Grand Moff Tarkin. When you consider his role in episode 4, it would have been odd to not see him in this movie. He is the third in command for the Empire behind only Darth Vader and the Emperor. So his inclusion in this movie was almost necessary and as it turns out he is in the movie. They got Peter Cushing, who played him in 1977, to return to play the role. Which is odd because he passed away over 20 years ago. Using similar technology to the one used in Tron legacy and Captain America civil War, the animators at ILM were able to digitally bring a dead actor back to life. For the most part, the effect worked really well. It was about 95% close to being perfect. The only time in my opinion that the effect is obvious is when they go close in on his eyes. His eyes look lifeless and you can see the animations, but besides that it was really impressive. People argue that he didn't need to be in the movie at all, but I completely disagree. It completely makes sense for him to be there and I'm glad they took that chance. Above everything, its fan service, which is not a bad thing. As a huge star wars fan, I got chills when he said "you may fire when ready" just like he did in Episode 4. While the technology is no quite there, it was pretty close and in my opinion, the chance they took paid off.

Another legacy character that was brought back for this movie was Princess Leia. Similar to Tarkin, her inclusion made complete sense. Considering the movie was about stealing the death star plans and in episode four she has the plans, it would have been weird for her not to be there in some way. Her role is far smaller than Tarkin's however, as she is only in one scene. She appears when the Rebels have successfully stolen the plays and a rebel captain brings her the plans. He hands her the plans and asks "what did they send us" and the same Leia from Episode 4 turns and says "hope". She appears using the same technology as Tarkin. They used an effect to make her look like Carie Fisher in 1977 and again it is really close. Again the effect is only noticeable when you look at the eyes. The way the used her character it really adds connective tissue to the saga as a whole. Even though the effect is not quite there yet, its really cool that they went for it. The effects used for Tarkin and Leia overall were really impressive and you believe that those are those charters. You can see that we are only years away from seeing this effect be perfected and seeing movies with all dead actors.

Bagman Forever Project

Bagman Forever was a group project I made with Zac Schuh and Alan Seidl. It is a comical twist to the classic superhero story. It is about a hero named "Bagman" who is delusional and believes he is a superhero. He sees the pizza man and believes that he is a criminal because the pizza logo looks like a monster. Alan did the first scene and zac did the second scene. I did things to assist both of them and made items and textures they required for their scenes. Then at the completion of both scene I edited the whole project together. I made the title card, the credits, transitions, and i inserted music and sound effects. While this sounds non-consiquential, its actual very important to tie the whole project together, without that you would only have several non connected scenes with no context. Thats basically everything, we plan to submit it to the 2017 Emagine awards.

Link to project: https://youtu.be/sSeHYUNBnoo

Animation Final Blog

Animation Year In Review                       

In this year of ecomm, I learned many new things. I got more comfortable with many of the programs we’ve used over the years. I learned about the more in-depth parts of Maya and After Effects. I used many tutorials on many of my projects, and I was able to use those skills on other projects.  For example, I learned how to manipulate vertexes more easily. With that skill, many new possibilities for my projects opened up. Those skills were important because it allowed me to work out parts of my projects more easily.

My biggest improvement is that I don’t have to look up or ask as many questions.  I started to remember parts of Maya and after effects that I previously had to look up or ask someone.  This year I was able to start up new projects easier, because of my amount of experience with the programs.

This year in animation my weaknesses and strengths became clearer.  One of my greatest weaknesses is coming up with ideas or concepts for projects. I find it is very difficult to come up with an idea that I think will work. I will start an idea and find out later that it is too ambitious or complicated. I found that I work best when we have a project in which were told specifically what to do. That way I don’t have to waste time coming up with an effective idea. One of my biggest strengths is keeping details true to source material. Whether it’s my baseball field or my light saber, I feel that one of my strengths is keeping the details of those objects consistent to the actual items. I go to great lengths to translate the details of the actual items to my projects.

The many skills that I acquired over this year allowed me to many to do more things with my projects. They allowed me to do things that I believed to be too difficult in the past. For example I can easily work with many different shapes and tools.  Where as in the past I was limited to the basic shapes and tools. I will also be able to use those skills in the future as well as expand on those skills. Things or tasks that are difficult for me now will become easier in the future, just like how I’m good at things now that I used to be stumped with. During this year I worked on modeling many different items for a collaboration project with Zac Schuh. A modeled a human, a desk, and other simple props. The human took the most time, however they all took a good amount of time and effort to complete. During the semester i learned many different things while trying to model different things. During the making of the human, I learned how to model human body parts.I got better at making and fitting custom textures for both the human and my other projects. I also learned how to rig human parts in maya, and when the rigs did not work properly, I fixed them by learning to paint weights. I also learned the important lesson of not trying to make things too realistic, but instead make it your own style, because when you strive for realism it is more easy to notice things that are out of place or incorrect. After rigging snd painting weights, I learned how to move the human parts in semi-realistic ways. So struggles I had was making the textures fit in different items. I found it hard to find the right texture size so that it was right size and it was rotated the right way. I also struggled with painting weights. I would have all the joints working accept one, but that one would throw a wrench into the works, and when I would fix that one joint another joint would get messed up and it was a long process to fix all of them. 
         One of the main things I would change about this year was my human project. Looking back on it, it was way too ambitious and complicated for it too be realistically a thing I could do. I sunk so much time into that project and I wish that I could go back and tell myself that I needed to stop. It was ultimately I waste of my time.

So that is basically my junior year in nutshell. I learned a lot of new things. I also refined some old things I knew previously.  So basically, besides a few missteps, it was a pretty good year.

Time Passing Project (Star Wars through the generations)

This a project I made to show moving time in an animation. The assignment we had was to make an animation that somehow showed time moving. So I decided to show a family watching Star Wars as they grow older. It starts with A person watch the movie by himself, then it cuts to him watching it years later with his wife, then it cuts forward again to show the couple watching it with their kid. By doing this, it shows that time is passing, while the characters are showing Star Wars to the new generations. It is a little rough around the edges, as I'm not proficient in the area of 2d animation, but the quality is good enough to show what I'm trying to show. So that is how a showed time passing in an animation.

Emagine Entry: Public Service Announcement

Recycling PSA

The project that I submitted to the 2016 emagine festival was a recycling PSA. It originated from a group stop motion project that I did with Zac Schuh, Alan Seidl, Decoder and Adam Oskvig. Before I detail the PSA, I will describe the original project so there can be some context. The original concept was that the main character (played by Adam) would continuously attempt to throw away a piece of trash, but he is unable to because the trash bin keeps moving out of the way. The idea was then pitched to the group that the project could be easily converted to a PSA. Once we decided to go forward with that idea, I took over the full responsibility of the project because everyone else in the group had other emagine projects that they were more passionate about. 

The first thing we did to convert it to a PSA was to shot an extra scene that would be added to the end of the PSA which depicts Adam giving up trying to throw away the paper in the trash and instead recycles the paper. This scene was key to the message of the PSA, which is to encourage people to recycle. 

I then put the main portion of the video in black and white except for the recycling bin, which is in full color. The reason for the effect is to convey the message that not recycling is like living in black and white and recycling is the morally correct thing to do. I also used a shock wave special effect on the recycling bin for when Adam puts the paper in the bin. When this effect happens, the scene transitions from being in black and white to full color. The idea was to show that Adam recycling the paper restored the world to a state of being healthy and flourishing with color. One of the main challenges of making the PSA was finding music that fit the tone that we wanted to set. We wanted a tone of slight sadness, redemption, and intensity. We ultimately had to use two different songs to achieve those tones because we couldn’t find one single song that conveyed all of those tones. 

Another challenge for me was cutting scenes of the original project in order to fit the PSA. Originally, Adam’s attempts to throw away the trash is more drawn out and detailed. I made the tough decision to cut this sequence down to just 2 shots of Adam being dragged because unlike the original project, the purpose of the PSA was not to show Adam being comically tormented by the trash can. The purpose was to convey the message of recycling and I felt that the extended clips of Adam being dragged around did not add to this message. 

Overall, I thought that all ideas and effort that I and the rest of the group put into our project came together and resulted in a very high quality PSA video and I believe it has a great chance to win a pixel at emagine.

Professional Project review

I will be reviewing how iron man 3 should've ended, it is part of the web-series: how it should have ended. This channel animates scenes from popular movies and makes fun of plot holes and major flaws. The series has existed since 2005 and has received a ton of success.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUYW0JyzydA

The animation techniques and style seen in the video are very basic. The are on a 2d plane and there are a lot of assets that are reused in different scenes. Although it is basic, it doesn't look bad. The walk cycles and facial movements are very clean and smooth. The colors and textures are not blurry, they are bright look great. Also the character design is great, as soon as the characters are seen the are  immediately reconizeable and look the they do in there movies.

The story of the animation is the end fight scene from Iron Man 3 but animated on a 2d plane. Then it shows all the characters from the movie talking at a cafe about the movie, breaking the 4th wall in the  process. The story was told from a third person perspective, showing everything thats going on. 

One thing the animator did well having a "busy" scene. There are many things going on in the foreground and the background. The scenes are vibrant and livly. One way the animator could improve would be that he could make some characters or things more complex. Often there are characters that are very simple and basic.

So overall it is a very good animation video that stays true to the source material. The animations and effects are smooth and clean. The sound design, from the voice acting to the music is very good. The only improvements would be very small nitpicks and overall aren't noticeable. 

Chiefs Highlight Video 2015-2016