Ident 2

Based on another random idea that entered my head, here is Ident number 2, in its early stages of development.




Here, Ste is shown happily sipping a bowl of curry/chilli/whatever your interpretation is of what's in the bowl... until he discovers that it's super hot and spicy, resulting in him running up and down the room breathing fire.

In this animation, there are actually two versions of Ste, with the one breathing fire acting as a sort of "stunt double". Here's a screengrab showing how the scene has been laid out:



Ste 1 is initially shown in the foreground, sipping the bowl. As he disappears off-screen, Ste 2 starts to run from left to right, with the flame moving at the same speed, making it look as though the flames are coming out of his mouth.

If you look carefully, you'll notice that Ste 1 has the original, motionless pair of legs, which you'll see if you pause the video about 6 seconds in... so he's basically sliding away from the table before Ste 2 runs in with the moving pair of legs.

More test animations

Here are some more test animations, showing the facial expressions as featured in my previous blog entry.

Firstly, the happy face:




And here's the other test animation I made, which is of Ste running. I previously attempted to use bones to animate his body, but that was difficult to master, so instead I've just adjusted the pivot points of a secondary pair of legs I made for him, and used key frames to animate the legs.




The legs are both moving at the same speed as each other, so they create a motion blur for a humourous effect.

But wait... what exactly did I mean by a secondary pair of legs?

Basically, the legs of the original character model are one solid object, which I initially hoped to animate using the 3DS Max bones. As previously stated, I had difficulty learning to use that function, so instead I replaced the legs with a pair of cylinders and adjusted the pivot points, making them easier to animate. Here's some screengrabs showing his two different pairs of legs:



The first pair of legs is (are?) used when his legs are not moving, for example, when he stands still for most of the first ident. The second pair is used when I need to make them move, like in the above test animation.

Facial Expressions

In my second ident, Ste will be displaying more emotions and facial expressions than his standard blank stare, blink, and the wide-eyed, surprised facial expression seen briefly in my previous test animation.

The following two screengrabs show the two new expressions that will be showcased in my second ident. First of all, here's a "happy" face:



Continuing with his Anime-influenced design, Ste is shown here with two "n" shaped closed eyes, which in Japanese Anime is used to show happiness. To make them, I used a Torus shape, which is basically like a ring, and manipulated it to suit my needs.

Secondly, here's a more... well, not-happy-at-all face:



Here, Ste is shown with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth now open. This kind of facial expression, unlike the happy one I made, is not used exclusively in Anime, but has also been seen in American cartoons such as South Park. It could mean any of the following: anger, pain, fright, frustration or despair.

Test animation - Ident 1

Here's a short animation I made, which was produced mainly as a basis for me to follow while making my idents. I'm pleased with how it turned out, so it will be enhanced later to be made into my first ident.



It's kind of a throwback to older Looney Tunes cartoons, so a sound effect from those cartoons... you know, the long, whistling sound that's made while Wile E Coyote falls down a cliff, will be used in the final version of this ident.

There are actually two versions of Ste in this Ident: one of them, the first one you see before he gets squashed, is moved underneath the surface as the anvil hits the ground. The second one was actually squashed to begin with, although he is invisible until the ton weight is lifted from the ground.

Before I finish this post, here's an unused version of Ident 1, with a slightly different ending...



This one, in my opinion, does feel more cartoony, but as you can see there were a couple of slight technical issues with the character model, where the hands were slightly removed from the arms, and the closed eyes for some reason appeared, making him look as if he has eyelashes. These problems could easily have been fixed, but I prefer the ending I went with.

Moodboards

Unlike last semester's project, these moodboards will not be related to the idents themselves (mainly because I feel doing it like that might be awkward, since it's difficult for me to translate the ideas swirling around in my head into a photo collage or something), so instead they will be related to things within the idents, like the mascot, Ste, and the company logo.

First of all though, here's a moodboard which actually features moods:


This first one describes the emotions people might experience while watching one of my idents.

Secondly, here's one going into deatil about Ste's design a bit:



And finally, here's a bunch of prototype versions of the SRTV logo, showcasing different fonts that I liked and played around with.

Research Board

Before producing my idents, I need to know how to put one together in order to make the channel recognisable, and the idents easy to remember. For reference purposes, here is a Research Board that I threw together, showing a few iconic TV idents that channels have used in the past.



The idents above are good examples for me to follow. Some of them are recognisable because the logo takes centre stage, being manipulated in interesting ways, while others feature a mascot character doing funny things.

The ones featuring a mascot character have more influence on my ideas than others, so my idents will be designed with my mascot character, and a sense of humour in mind.