Torran Rodgers, BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester

  Character Design: Environments After a few discussions with Justin it has become apparent that a key to the style of UPA is the artistic importance of the backgrounds in UPA's animations. Many look like painting's in there own right following the artistic genre's of modernist times. Mainly surrealism and Minimalism. Because of this where the character is could be seen as just as important as the character design itself. Location Ideas Landscape thumbnails Colour Thumbnails

  Character Design: UPA Shark After research and preliminary sketches I managed to settle of the design for my shark following the conceits that come along with the style of UPA animation.  After these sketches I had a good idea of the character, I then had to decide how much of the character was going to be see through following the upa style. My Final Character looks a lot like this with a solid colour as a body and his extremities being draw over and clear on screen.

  Maya Class: Moom Ease In and Out In this session we added ease in and out into our weight Lifting animation, learning how to apply these principles to3D animation and how it should look in the graph editor.

  Maya Class: Moom spline and the graph editor In this class we used the spline function and the graph editor to turn our stepped animation into a smooth 3D animation. Once we use the spline to do this we then go into the graph editor to make the motions closer to arcs, thus creating smoother and more believable motion in our 3D models.

  Meg's Art Jam: Week 2

  Maya Session: Posing for animation Posing Moom to create an animation of him weight lifting, this is the first stepped stage of animating.

  Collaboration: layout/Initial Environments I started doing the initial layout and environment modelling for my collaboration project. each environment is for a different scene and comedy sketch. Space Mayan Temple Field/Electricity Caveman/Fire

  Collaboration Animatics the first animatic made from the storyboard molly and Alex drew. U used these to create a sense of timing as well as showing how the audio cues are important for the animation. without sound With sound

  Tool Kit 2 : Displacement In this tutorial I learnt how to use the 2 variations of displacement maps. Firstly how to generate them using Mudbox and then after how to use them within Arnold. The first version is a black and white displacement map that can only effect the height of the generated topology. The second was a Vector displacement map that used colour data as well, this meant that you could generate overhangs with the displacement map. Displacement. original topology. Vector Displacment.

Maya Class: Relaxed Posing While learning to pose moom we where asked to look at relaxed poses in class. these are mu attempts at posing them along with the photo I used as reference.

Collaboration Script Fire 2 I was responsible for righting the Fire script, this is the second draft of this script and I think its better then the previous version of this script. Exterior: Cave, evening: Presenter: The time is 15 million BC and where here to witness the first creation of fire by the Uuurg family, lets get a closer look. presenter stands to the side and the camera zooms in on a caveman family. As they slight a small fire outside. and start to sit around. Presenter: They've done it now as long as the conditions stay right they should be warm throughout to night. Rain starts. Presenter: Ah Cuts to exterior: Hut Night Presenter: As you can see they decided to move the fire undercover... wait is that really going to work. Fire Catches onto the building  Presenter: Ah I figured as much. fire continues to spread to the surrounding foliage as the camera zooms out and pans onto the Presenter looking worried. the presenter signals to cut the video and a tech...

  Film Review: Lion King Hero: Simba is the hero of our story and fits the archetype of a hero so well when thinking about the hero's journey. Shadow: Scar is the shadow in the lion king sowing ill will and deception in the start of the movie to set up the events of the film. Herald:  Rafiki calls Simba to action and shows him a way to get in contact with his father. He helps the hero find there way and shows Simba the path when he's lost. The Threshold Guardian: I think the threshold guardians are the hyenas in the lion king. i think this is because they are present and the threat when Simba and Nala go into the darklands, crossing the threshold into defiance against Mufasa. Trickster: Timon as he plan's to use Simba for safety as he is a lion and can scare off other predators.  Mentor/father: Mufasa if Simba's father and mentor, a father figure who is teaching him to be king even after his death at the start of the movie. Allies: Timon, Pumba and Nala are the main all...

  Collaboration Scripts 1 Fire: 1 Location: Cave, Evening Mid shot of Cave men, one in hitting rocks together while the other's are huddled together for warmth. Narrator: The first scientific discovery man kind made is believed to be the discovery of fire. after striking 2 rocks together embers ignite dry fuel to create fire. Lets see the moment this family discovered fire. Young caveman girl hits rocks together and sparks fly and land on her brothers club. Causing a fire to start, surprised all the cavemen jump back and away. Upon realising the fires creates heat they huddle around the flames for warmth. Curious the young boy cave man pokes the fire with a stick catching it on fire. All the cave men are surprised, the dad take the stick away form him, and lifts his clothes on fire. he starts happy with it and stats making more spots on his clothes. Soon after he starts panicking an as the fire engulfs him causing him and his family to panic. Transition from the 3D environment to a...

  Collaboration : Character Design  Character concepts for out Short Animation. Our characters so far our Cavemen, our Historian and an Astronaut.  

  A Bug's Life: The Hero's Journey Review After learning about the hero's journey, I have re-watched a bugs life in an attempt to break it down into the frame work of the hero's journey. The Ordinary world: The ordinary world is the ant colony being oppressed by the grass hopper's. The way of life where they are threatened and bullied into collecting food for the grass hoppers while also collecting food for themselves. The call to adventure: Flik see's a world where the ants can harvest food fast enough that they can feed the grass hoppers while also collecting enough food for themselves. This is in an attempt to relieve the stress that the ants feel when collecting food. The call to adventure is often linked to the themes of the movie. However the main theme is ridding the ants of the grass hoppers instead of this call to just sate the grass hoppers. Refusal of the call: Flik gives up on these ideas and agrees to act like everyone else and collect food in the s...