Ted Stapletons University Blog

 

  I think this is one of the toughest projects I have ever undertaken in my time in education. I have felt both scared and stressed out believing I will fail this whole course if I even remotely submitted anything subpar and thus fail at having a career in animation. Not helping was the Covid pandemic which has greatly affected the university, my mental health, my course, my family, among much more. While I think I am likely to pass the course now that I have submitted all the necessary components for my major project, needless to say there is quite a bit I wish I could have done better. The reason I believe for a lot of this was simply time. Some was out of my control other times I feel I could have done something to help myself give a better outcome of the project. I cannot help but feel that while it could've gone a lot worse my project could've been a lot better if I had a bit more time such as having better time management and stopping myself from procrastinating as often.

    A Viking's Tale The goal and concept of my film called A Vikings Tale sees the story of Gorm. He sits in the tavern in front of an audience telling his tale of how he singlehandedly demolished the Saxon defenders of England during a raid. The story is one of comedy as we see that Gorm only survived his encounter with the Saxons because of dumb luck. It is revealed at the end of the short that he was simply rehearsing in front of a bunch of dolls. As he checks the proper pronounciation of 'England' the door to the tavern opens up revealing the true audience much to Gorms dismay.  The outcome of this short film was to create a character focused animation with influence from Slapstick comedies and stop motion animation. Due to factors some of which i think i could of done better I didnt get the whole film completed with maybe a little over 50 percent of it animated. However, I did get my Production Bible and demo reels of my two main characters completed while demonstra

 

  Gorm at the tavern. I used area lights to get the lighting I wanted along with subsurface scattering being showcased on Gorm. 

  The Saxons readying themselves for attack.

  Gorm and the saxon. Some extra work on the texturing could be done but it is looking rather nice for the scene. The lighting looks better than I had expected. 

 Playblast of an almost finished animation of Gorm in the Tavern, the first we see of him. Lighting is present but not finalized. 

  Tankard texturing.  Chair texturing. 

current progress on my animation. 

  Textured rocks in Substance Painter. Rocks with lighting. Close-up of detail.

 

  Concept Art Model and Uvs

  Lower body Upper body Head and helmet

 

 

To create the normals and bumpmap for my tree I used mudbox. I used the stencils provided to sculpt the textures of the leaves and bark.  Leaves sculpt in Mudbox Tree and bark sculpt  Final Render

Running animation test.  Lipsync animation test. Gorm improved Turnaround.  Improved animatic which is shorter and with more sounds. My final plan for my the coming final weeks of my project: I intend to complete my characters models, particularly the textures for them before the month is over as well as the environments which I need to create more models for. I hope to start animating before the month is up. Because of the simple influences for my animation I should be able to create the majority of props and environments in an short amount of time, the latter is not overly complex. I'll be able to create turnarounds for both characters and demonstrate Gorms squash and stretch and complex facial animations. I also intend to work on editing the story and content of my animated short such as improving the animatic further, getting new sound work and better voice acting for the short and even some music. My back up plan would be to demonstrate my animation capabilites, creative t

 

 

 

My robot - a walker  

 

 

 

  Reflective Statement – Minor Project This whole project has really tested my ability to deliver outstanding work in a timely fashion and in a sufficient quality. Not helping also has been the events of the last few months and mental toll it’s taken on all of us. From developing the production of my animated short, to creating an animatic, to the creation of the actual characters who would inhabit my world with. I truly found the experience working with professional software, modelling, UVing and finally rigging my characters. That said there was a considerable amount of stress involved in this project that I was not quite accustomed to. Perhaps because of the particular situation me and my group found ourselves in, but I found some activities such as Maya to be fairly strenuous at times as I encountered some problems. Whether technical and out of my control or due to me lacking some knowledge of the program I did struggle trying to create a quality model, rigged, textured and skinn

 Link to Premise Making of: https://tedsuniblog.blogspot.com/2020/05/talking-with-vikings-making-of-premise.html For my Minor Project I decided to make a character-centric animated short. The world of my short is heavily influenced by real world history and media. Largely stop-motion shows such as Charlie Chalk, Postman Pat and Aardman animation. The short follows the exploits of a rather cowardly Viking called Gorm.  Reflective Statement – Minor Project This whole project has really tested my ability to deliver outstanding work in a timely fashion and in a sufficient quality. Not helping also has been the events of the last few months and mental toll it’s taken on all of us. From developing the production of my animated short, to creating an animatic, to the creation of the actual characters who would inhabit my world with. I truly found the experience working with professional software, modelling, UVing and finally rigging my characters. That said there was a considerable amount

 

 

  Rigging on the hands. Made sure they were particularly flexible. 

  Rigging and skinning the legs and boots. Adding controls for the body.

  Head and helmet Upper body Lower body

  My completed Saxon model. Ready for skinning and rigging. 

Temporary shaders for the axe models.  

  One of Gorm's axes. The hand was used as a reference for scale.

  Refurbished with touch eyebrows and facial hair. Eyes have been modelled properly as well. Experimenting with how to do eye rigs. The process had an extra level of complexity as I had to use the expression editor to get the lattice base to move along with control correctly. 

 

  Finished Saxon Model Finished Gorm Model Mammoth skull prop model CONCEPT ART Prop concept art 1 Prop concept art 2 Gorm explorations 1 Early Gorm Concept art Gorm Concept Art and orthographs. Gorm orthographs for head Hilda and Yrsa concept art Saxon Concept Art and Orthographs  Saxon Head Orthographs