Minor Project - Atom Pancakes- The Final Chapter

With the minor project basically wrapped up, I thought I would write evaluation of the time spent with my colleagues at Atom Pancakes and share any of the latest animation work.

The 15 to 18 week period spent with my 2 colleagues Jordan Buckner and Ethan Shilling, on our latest project was an amazing experience. It definitely taught me a lot of things about collaboration, work ethic and friendship. When we set up for this project we had a main goal, that in 15 weeks from that time we would have an animation, which the three of us would be happy with. Although in times, it wasn't as easy as it seems, we all learnt a valuable lesson, that in order to succeed in this industry, you have to work as a community, accepting and giving feedback, negotiating and compromising. Our task to create this animation was immense, as we from the beginning decided to create a story from scratch, however after a few weeks of not being sure, the group worked very well together to overcome this problem, always giving and receiving input. With the foundation of the project, laid out the rest was a very enjoyable trip, where me and my colleagues shared and worked well together, to design the world of 'The Final Chapter', from character to environment design, every single member's opinion was taken into account and used in favour of the project.
While at production, stage, everything ran smoothly, as we decided to distribute the tasks according to each individuals strengths. Animation was a very insightful task, as we had time to explore it we were able to further develop our skills.
In the end everything came together nicely, and despite a few last minutes hazard, the group was ejected with enough adrenaline to overcome them rapidly and successfully.

I would like to thank Jordan Buckner and Ethan Shilling, for the great experience, but also the tutors, Phil Gomm and Alan Postings, for allowing this group to form.

Surely, I used this experience to build by confidence when attempting to get a job after my degree.

After an emotional ending for a my evaluation, here is the promised latest work I have done in The Final Chapter.

Animation: 

Finished Scene

Prepare scene

( The Typing Scene)

Dynamics: 

Bubbles

Smoke

Supporting Documents: 

Making of - The Final Chapter

The Final Chapter - Character Bible

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'The Final Chapter' by Atom pancakes

Atom Pancakes proudly presents 'The Final Chapter'. Our short animation finally finished.

directed by:
       Jordan Buckner
       Ethan Shilling
       Ruben Martins

Synopsis:

"The story follows our crime writer, Arthur Winters, as he attempts to write the ending of his book. As he thinks through possible ideas, things begin to go wrong around him. While having these ideas, Winters enters his dream space and starts to act like the suspects. When he finally realises an idea that works, he burst into motion to finish his book, however the simplest of the tasks is not so simple after all."

Enjoy!!

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The Final Chapter Supporting Documents

Atom pancakes would like to share the documents supporting our animation, they feature the behind-the-scenes which helped us produce our final short.

Making of - The Final Chapter

If you like the character Arthur Winters, this document will explain how our studio decided upon the design and show some of the early stage drawings of him .

The Final Chapter - Character Bible

Enjoy!

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Animation at Atom Pancakes IV

Lately, I have been spending time and more time animating and tweaking any animation previously done. It has been a very enjoyable journey with a lot learnt. With only one more scene to tweak. What follows is an animation "dump" of all the scenes I have been working on.

Animation Finished Scene

Animation Finished Scene- Cameras

Animation Prepare Scene- Cameras

Montage Scene

One of the things I have been working was the dynamics for some of the scenes, here is a bubble test done and which will be added on the glass in one of the scenes. 

Bubble Dynamics Test Render

The final animation is almost approaching keep tuned. 

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Animation at Atom Pancakes III

Animation and rendering is going well at Atom pancakes, we almost done with all the scenes to animate however, is still a few bits to tweak.

Here are the scenes I have been working on:

Tension Playblast Edit

After Credits Scene- Blocking

                                                              After Credits Scene- Final

Dream Detective- Blocking

Prepare Scene- Blocking

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Busy Times at Atom Pancakes Studio

Lately, At Atom Pancakes I have been with my fingers in many pies, as we trying to finalise production and set everything to render. As I said I have mentioned in charge of some more scenes to animate, painting the background matte paintings and testing dynamics such as smoke and fire.

Animation

Butler Scene

Firstly, I tweaked the butler scene on the laughing jumps, I have made them just so they are more subtle and are a movement around the chest area rather than the pelvis.

On this scene, I just have to animate the props, such as the tray, the ice cube and the drink mesh. Apart from that, it is ready for rendering.

I am also animating other scenes, at the moment they are at the blocking out stages. but they will be finished as soon as possible.


Prepare Scene

Progress 1

Progress 2

Also I have blocked the investigation scene, but it is not uploaded yet. 

Test Dynamics

I have been playing around with dynamics, in order to get a smoke effect for the burning paper. after fiddling around I came to something that seems to be the right track. further tweaks will be on the particle size, colour, turbulence and conserve attributes.

Matte Paintings

As I said I have been working on the matte paintings for the interior and exterior environment. I have tried to conserve the painterly style.

Outside Matte Painting

Interior Night Matte Painting

Interior Day Matte Painting

Note that this not Moon or Sun on the Matte Paintings, it is because I have created them separately, in which I will render and animate in AE. 

It is all for now, more updates coming soon... Stay Tuned

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Animation at Atom Pancakes II

So animation continues at Atom Pancakes, I decided to carry on tweaking the Butler Scene, and I have to say it is almost ready for rendering, It still needs some secondary animation.

Butler Reveal Scene Animation Progress 8 (Close-up)

Butler Reveal Scene Animation Progress 8

I have also began blocking the Investigation Scene, and I will post a playblast soon.

On a side note, I am also in charge of getting the dream sequence environment ready for rendering, so today I took some time to to set it up with lighting and also playing around with the background.

We opted to go for a simpler set up where we will have the character fully lit, and the body, laying on the floor under the spotlight.  

For the space not look so empty, we will add a few effects, in this case some particle travelling between the character and the black space. they will be the pattern of the room.

Just like shown on this render.

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Animation at Atom Pancakes I

So Animation begins!! and how exciting it is! At Atom Pancakes I was assigned to animate a few scenes for the following weeks, i will be blocking, animating and tweaking them.

Reveal Butler Animation (Progress 1)

Reveal Butler Animation (Progress 2)

Reveal Butler Animation (Progress 3)

Reveal Butler Animation (Progress 4)

Reveal Butler Animation (Progress 5)

Still a bit to tweak

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The Final Chapter is Coming Soon...

Follow our official blog for all the progress at:

http://atompancakes.blogspot.com

Or our Facebook page or twitter at: (respectively)

More updates will land on here very soon! 

Keep Tuned!

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More Props ...

This week at Atom Pancakes I have decided to get the modelling stage out of the way, therefore I took on any leftover model and finished ready for scaling and texturing.
Note that most of these props were already started by my colleague Ethan, So i tweaked them and laid out the UVS.

Cup Trophy

Cup Trophy UVs

Pencil Sharpener

Pencil Sharpener UVs

Pot Plant (Dynamics Simulation Still to come)

Shield Trophy

Shield Trophy UVs

With this left the last prop needed is the burnt hair on our character, that will need to be modelled and then sculpted. 

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Atom Pancakes Project-Final Chapter- Progress

Last week, the task was primarily model the character and lay out its Uvs, with that finished my task for the past week was to model the character props, a set of props that will be  close and parented to the character, and that going to be animated.

Although I may post some repetitions this are the props i have been working on.

Butler's Tie Bow

Butler's Tray

Magnifying Glass

Chef's Rolling Pin with Breakable Rigged Extra

Burnt Moustache

Chef's Hat

Monocle

On this prop I have also created a video showing the whole system of the string working, as we move the monocle glass the string will follow. 

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