When I grow up, I want to be a pirate...

I'm trying to get into drawing more often, it's something I really need to work on... so here's a bunch of us out at Halloween! I'm sorry if you're not in the picture, there were originally twice as many characters but my drawing skills weren't quite up to scratch to do you all you beautiful people justice. 

Go go gadget compositing breakdown!

Today we had a pretty interesting drop-in session with the one and only Pat Imrie on showreels, and it got me thinking about mine, and what kind of career I'd gear it towards.

I've always been interested in compositing, editing and visual effects. I really love seeing the process of bringing hundreds of separate elements, beautifully crafted by talented artists, and stitching them together in an epic tapestry of explosions, particles and motion blur. I enjoy the freedom you can get with compositing and post production, you can change the mood or tone of an entire shot. It's powerful stuff!

I'm not sure whether I'd like to do it as a career or not, because I really love the animation and more creative side of things too. Regardless, Pat's talk inspired me to have a whack at a breakdown of a shot. The only shot I've got fully composited for our project is the opening scene (sans title) from the previous blog post. The entire 6s shot has about 30 separate layers throughout, I picked the frame with the most elements for the breakdown (18). Hope you find it interesting!

Slainté

Lava - Compositing Breakdown from Kieran Duncan on Vimeo.

Volcanoes, explosions and lens flare oh my!

It's been a hectic month since my last update, amidst a fray of general animator debauchery  and alcohol consumption we've been very busy working on the project. You can check out our blog here!

I've been having some fun with compositing this weekend on our opening shot which you can check out below! It's not finalised, I've still got some tweaking to do... but it should give you a good insight into the kind of look we're going for. I'd recommend watching it full size.

Lava - Test composite. from Kieran Duncan on Vimeo.

So uni wise everything is coming together pretty well... Long ways to go yet but we know what we're doing (for the most part).

Also, hats off to the Dundee Uni website who linked me on their animation page! Hello prospective students.

Finally, inspiring quote du jour:

"When I get sad, I stop being sad, and be awesome instead..."

- Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson

How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb After Effects.

A lot of people have this misconstrued idea that I have a wealth of knowledge about Adobe After Effects  stored away in my puny little brain, and I'm generally the go-to guy when it comes to AE. When in fact ,it's about 2 years worth of tinkering, tutorials and generally screwing around that have given me a slight head start when it comes to effects and compositing compared to most. I'll let you guys into a little secret, and hopefully this'll enlighten some people as to how easy and simple it is to get some experience using after effects. 

I think compositing and post production processing is one of the most vital parts of any production pipeline. Regardless if it's a 2D piece, a 3D piece, or a combination of both... Good compositing and subtle post-processing effects can catapult a visually average short film to new heights.

Enter The Lovely by Owen McGonigle is a great example of a previous DoJ animation which shows great use of colour correction. It's stunningly beautiful, and the extra work done on the shots really adds so much depth to the film. In my opinion, the thing that makes a film look good are all the things you don't notice... but you'd notice if they weren't there. It gives an animations a much more organic, immerse feel. Naturally, it won't suit absolutely everything but I think a lot of projects could really benefit from it. 

This video below gets across what I mean pretty well, it's a Star Trek (2009) special feature... and anybody who's seen the film will know how incredible the CG visuals are, but this is a nice insight into their thought process and how they kept it looking so natural yet dynamic.

Anyway, I'm getting side tracked. The first time I opened up After Effects, I could feel my brain cells slowly committing suicide. There's a lot to wrap your head around, but after a couple of days of getting used to the  interface and general mechanics it becomes a lot easier.

WWW.VIDEOCOPILOT.NET

That link right there folks, is the single greatest AE resource on the entire interweb. It's run by a chap called Andrew Kramer, and he's an absolute godsend in visual effects and compositing. He has hundreds of tutorials on animation, colour correction, title sequences, particle effects, 3D camera moves, 2D/3D layering, compositing, 3D intergration, keying and visual effects. That's not even the best part, all this is completely free. No registration or subscriptions.

The best place to start is his After Effects Basic Training course, it covers the very basics of absolutely everything you need to know in short, entertaining tid-bits. I know  lot of it won't seem applicable to most animators, but I'd recommend watching them anyway just to familiarise yourself with the program and the possibilities it offers. After that, he has 110 free tutorials uploaded on how to accomplish an incredible range of visual effects and adds more every few weeks. One last thing, there's another page with a load of free presets and plugins to add extra features and make your AE experience generally smoother and quicker for more advanced users. 

All you need is to take some time off, find some patience, and work your way through some tutorials and it'll open up a world of possibilities to give your work that extra touch which will really bring it to life.

Ain't no rest for the wicked indeed...

Alas, a summer of adventure, debauchery and good old tom foolery has resulted in a severe lack of blog posts over the past 3 months. However, today being our first official return to the studio it's only right to mark the momentous occasion with a blog post of incredibly underwhelming proportions.

I had the greatest summer of my life, words can't do the Annecy trip justice. Beautiful scenery, beautiful weather, beautiful people, beautiful wine and beautiful animation. Definitely a holiday I'll remember, and I'm sure the rest of the gang would say the same.

Thailand was equally as spectacular, a month travelling on my own was definitely the most fulfilling and enlightening experience of my life thus far. It's resulted in a horrendously penniless existence consisting of noodles, toast and out of date sausages. Regardless,  I'd do it all again without a second thought (and probably will next year).

Me and my co-animators Lynne, Finlay and 2-Legged Grossi also moved into our flat in August and celebrated with a stupendous flat warming. The ASBO is framed above the fireplace along with the complaint letters from our neighbours.

Team Bacon Bots (Myself, Lynne, Tom P, Kat H and Olivia) have started work on our new 3rd year project a week ahead of schedule which is great. Sadly Veggie Pirates is on the back burner for the time being, we concluded that the world just isn't ready for it yet. However, we've cooked up a brand spanking new idea which we're pretty excited about. More details on that as it progresses. 

Also, I changed the title of my blog. I figured the Princess and the Frog pun was getting stale, and made me come off as a bit of a queen... an image I'm trying to avoid these days (somewhat unsuccessfully).

I'm trying to get back into drawing, this one nicely sums up our first day. 

(Click for full size)