Bringing the Beast to Life

To begin animating the Crocorilla, I decided that it would be best to study both gorilla and crocodilian movement.  I did this via the following videos:

Gorilla Reference 1

Gorilla Reference 2

Gorilla Reference 3

Gorilla Reference 4

Crocodile Reference


I found these very useful for getting a better idea as to how my creature would move, given that it has the arms of a gorilla and the legs of a crocodilian.

From this I decided to go with 3-4 animated actions: walking; running; chest-beating; attacking.

With the actions in mind, I could begin to do reference studies from the videos. I found this a very pleasing way to work, even if it did take a considerable amount of time having to stop and start videos and watch the same small sections over and over again.

Walking

Running

Chest-Beat

Attacking

I also decided to sketch out a quick set of storyboards, as I had the idea that I could combine the actions into one run-together animation, however the more I thought about it and studied the pros and cons, I realised it was not the best way forward and would instead continue with the showreel.

To animate the Crocorilla, I decided that the best way to do so would be to run passes, rather than go through each action, fully rendering each image before moving on to the next. This way, at least if I run out of time, everything will be up to the same speed.

So first off I began by using basic shapes for each of the Crocorilla's parts and moving them around using Flash:

I found this way of animating very useful, as it meant I could concentrate on the movement a lot better without worrying about the details.

I chose just to focus on the 3 animations, as I didn't feel I had left myself enough time to focus on 4 and would rather achieve 3 better ones than 4 rushed ones. Hence I chose walking, running and chest-beating.

So on top of the basic shapes for each frame, I drew the Crocorilla and changed the hue and saturation so that the blues became browns, achieving this look:

Here are the links to the animations done in this way:


Crocorilla Walk

Crocorilla Run

Crocorilla Chest-Beat


With the end looming near, I decided that the best way to proceed was to keep the animations the way they are, as I'm happy with them, and add a relatively simple background to stop the sparse emptyness. I went for a snowy mountainous region with bare trees as can be seen in the updated animations:


Crocorilla Walk

Crocorilla Run

Crocorilla Chest-Beat


With the animations complete, I could create a showreel in Adobe Premier and chose a suitable sound track to accompany it:


Black Sabbath - 'Zeitgeist'


Having never used Premier before, it was a bit trial and error to get things working, but it was a fairly intuitive programme so I managed a lot better than I thought I would.

Here is the final showreel ready for submission:


Showreel


Overall, I am pleased with the final outcome, though I do feel the animations are a bit short. I feel that the addition of the background and sountrack to the showreel really helps the character a lot.

Concepting the Creature

With the initial research out the way, I can now use my creature generator to, well, generate creatures!

After generating a number of creatures, I chose 3 of them to take on into designing:

Creature 1:
- Animal
- Mammal/Reptile - Amphibian
- Native
- Mutant
- Aggressive
- Fantasy
- Horror

Creature 2:
- Humanoid
- Avian/Fish - Sealife
- Invader
- Mutant
- Aggressive
- Alternate Reality
- Adventure

Creature 3:
- Animal
- Mammal/Fish - Sealife
- Native
- Monster
- Docile
- Fantasy
- Documentary

From these briefs, I have blocked out silhouettes for each.

Creature 1:

Creature 2:

Creature 3:

From all these silhouettes, I have chosen the following 9 as potentials:

And from these 9 silhouettes, I have chosen 3 with which to do more in depth research on: top middle; top right; bottom right.

For top middle I will be looking at both sloths and komodo dragons.
For top right I will be looking at gorillas and crocodiles/alligators.
For bottom right I will be looking at whales and hippopotamus.


Moodboards were then produced for each creature using images taken from Google searches:

Creature 1:

Creature 2:

Creature 3:

With good reference imagery, I can now go on to produce sketched ideas for the creatures and, hopefully, have one that stands out to me as something I'd want to go with. I find creating moodboards like those above to be very useful when it comes to using reference, as they mean that I have all the images I need in one place and I can focus on certain ones, or the piece as a whole. Saves a lot of time compared to flicking through several images and losing concentration.


Creatures 1 and 2:

Creature 3:

After a bit of debate, I have decided to go with Creature 2, hence-forth dubbed Crocorilla. I think it will be an interesting challenge to animate a gorilla-like creature, as I find the way they walk both fascinating and appealing. To further the design of the Crocorilla, I see it as a sort of Yeti, Abominable Snowman or Big Foot figure, and so I found 2 good examples of those sort of creatures from different media:

The top image is taken from the computer game 'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim', whilst the bottom image is from the film 'The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.'

With this extra reference point and using my initial design, I have gone on to refine the Crocorilla and so it now looks like this:

I also took this image into photoshop to render it with some colour, creating a more finished piece, as well as a quick piece to see how the creature would look in the final animation, knowing that I won't be able to render it up to the same quality as the first image. I also had in mind that I wanted it to be an albino creature, similar to most Yeti designs, but also to symbolise the rarity of the creature:

Detailed render:

Quick Render:

At this point, I am pleased with the progress of the design of the Crocorilla, though I am sure that as I work further on with the project, I shall refine details and get it to exactly the way I want it, without trying to force the design just now. I also feel that it is important to start the animation process now, as it is a long one and will require quite a lot of referencing footage of live gorillas and crocodiles/alligators in order to get the Crocorilla to move convincingly, as well as test animations.

That is all on the front of concepting the Crocorilla, as I will now move on to animating it, which I shall document in the next post. 

Starting the Coursework

Starting the official coursework now for Advanced Character Animation as November trundles by at an alarming rate. The brief given is, like the other modules, very open:

You will develop and produce emotionally engaging character animation.  To lead the development of your animation, you should select one of the following fields in which to specialise:

Narrative animation

Animation for visual effects

Animation for computer games

You will conceive and produce character animation(s) appropriate to your research within one of these fields.  Your animation will:

Utilise an emotionally expressive character

Be appropriate to your chosen specialisation

Be a maximum of 2 minutes in length

I have decided to go with the specialised field of animation for computer games. In particular, I plan to make an animation show reel of a 2D creature. It will perform common actions such as walking, running, attacking, etc. 

Firstly however, I have decided that it would be prudent to research into creatures not just from games, but from films also as good reference. I believe from these I can define archetypes with which I can create my own creature from.

Dead Space

   

Dragon's Crown

Final Fantasy

Gears of War

Metro 2033

Monster Hunter

Oddworld series

Silent Hill

Avatar

Pacific Rim

I shall now develop a creature generator system that involves a series of questions and randomised options that, in theory, should help to produce creature silhouettes.  
 
From all the creatures above, I have deduced that there are 2 main categories into which I would place them:

- Humanoid
or
- Animal

The category of 'Animal' could then be split up into:

- Avian
- Mammal
- Reptile/Amphibian
- Insects/Arachnids
- Fish/Sealife

Whilst looking up animal categories, I came across the term 'Endling', which I found to be incredibly moving and potentially a good idea to be used. It means a creature that is the last of it's species/subspecies and when it dies, it will be extinct.

Then I would ask, is the creature:

- Native
or
- Invader

  Furthermore, is the creature a:

- Mutant
or
- Monster
or
- Regular Creature

Then it must be questioned if the creature is:

- Docile
or
- Aggressive

It must also be considered as to what genre the creature would be placed in:

- Sci Fi
or
- Fantasy
or
- Alternate Reality

These can then have further options, such as:

- Adventure
or
- Horror
or
- Documentary