YCN Awards - winner

Got directed to this a few times yesterday, great news! Thanks to everyone for the comments etc, more than a few good things came my way off the back of this so it was really nice to get the award aswell.

http://awards.ycnonline.com/news/post/09-10-ycn-student-awards-announced/

http://www.mattfrodsham.com/blog/

Quick postcards for vimeo page

Mini title cards for the 2 main videos on my vimeo page that add an extra element of finish

Making Of

Making Of: Cartoon Network from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.

"Quick breakdown of design, production and post. There's no audio except for what was output with original motion tests (so watch out if your speakers are on loud half way through), but thought some might find it interesting to see everything thrown into a chunk of video. The blog has more indepth explanation but I figured this would be easier to flick through."

Final HD Renders

Cartoon Network: Rebrand Reel [HD] from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.

Final Colour Grade

I like the aesthetic I have developed throughout the project, I purposely wanted to keep the colours from being too saturated and explosive as a change from the majority of TV aimed at children. I think the content and characters have enough personality through the animation and texture without needing to complicate things with a mass of bright colour.

I kept the background's white to draw focus to the simplistic cardboard scenes, only that matters and the rest of the world is empty - much like children's real surroundings disappear when playing a game and are imagining a totally different environment.

Having said that I've received one or two comments that the overall look might be a bit dull/cold and that the background may be blown out/over exposed in a couple of spots so I went back and ensured there was a lot of detail in the grey/white background textures and then as a final touch to add a bit of warmth and slight colour randomness I added a very subtle 4-colour corner gradient. This is a common technique to break up the tone of a very light background and just adds a little more interest to the frame (bear in mind the screenshot uploader is still darkening images on compression - the result is lighter and more subtle in the video):

Compositing - Screen replacement

Clean Plate

With matted character using object buffer. This allows layers to pass behind the character in the composite.




The red solid was exported with a tag out of cinema, along with 3D data (camera position) so this can be replaced with any image or comp in after effects and it will retain it's relative 3D position in the scene.
I resized the solid and worked out it's new size based on percentage scale.

This cut to a different angle shows the red solid has stayed in position relative to the rest of the scene, it still appears as if it's in front of the TV.

Using another object buffer matte, I duplicate the clean plate layer and use the TV as a 'stencil' to overlay the red solid.




The TV screen is designed as a new composition with the same dimensions as the solid.

The position and rotation values are copied from the solid to the new comp. It is sitting behind the TV frame, but in the CU shots it is overlapping the character which should obviously be in front.

A third object buffer is used to matte another duplicate of the animation layer which allows me to drag this to the top of the layer stack and become the front most object in the scene.

A depth pass is used like the previous set of idents to add a sense of space and semi photo-realistic quality to the image and post effects are added to the TV screen to make it appear as if it is glowing and over exposed (which it would be if recorded with the surroundings exposed correctly).

Lower Third dev

3D render with alpha. To help it stand out against the block bright colours I want to introduce some texture that will act as a border/background


Continuing the textures from the main ID's I constructed the type background elements from card. The white is 'painted' in photoshop to retain some subtle texture while allowing the type to be read at high speed against the clear background.


The lower third when layed against a cartoon (© cartoon network) is easy to read, the style contrasts with the background but also isn't overbearing due to the colour pallette.

Characters - favourite shows/types

Dumraar: Action - Batman
Squig: Comedy - Chowder
Cal: Sci-fi - Dexter's Lab
Paul: Adventure - Flapjack
Rif: Cool, comedy - Johnny Bravo


To demonstrate their favourite characters/shows the characters will wear elements of 'costume' also made from card. This will hint at CN's existing franchises that the audience will pick up on without using them exclusively or completely transforming the base characters into them in the way that Capacity did with their vinyl toy rebrand.

Beam construction

Rendered a seperate plate for the beam out of cinema and used a combination of blend modes and effects to create a glow/volumetric look in after effects.

Using 32bit mode allows for 'overbright' or natural blown highlights to be created, looking more like realistic light.
A turbulent distortion effect at the end creates the 'vapour' effect as the beam is shut off and disappears.

Beam Final Render

CN Beam from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.

Zoom Final Render

CN Zoom from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.

Tower Final Render

CN Tower from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.

Glide Final Render

CN Glide from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.

Rather than post previs edits and wireframes for each video on my vimeo account I will wait until I have all the scenes completed and create a more comprehensive making of video to show all the behind the scenes work so as not to waste time and clutter my accounts.

I was correct in thinking the rest of the scenes would render much quicker than the sea scape because the scenery is a lot less complex, this took little over 3 hours and because the after effects project is now set up with colour correction adjustment layers and audio I just need to tweak each shot and add the post effects like motion and depth blur.

Float - Final Render

CN Float from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.

While animating the next bumper I wanted to setup a workflow for the post production. Render time was just 4 hours approx. with the Sky sampler GI. The only grain was eliminated from the sky with the DOF blur. Looking forward to the new plugin Nick Campbell at greyscalegorilla.com is working on to utilise this technique by building lighting rigs and custom HDRI maps to use.

Depth tests

Before any final render because of the amount of cameras I render a frame with multi pass from each shot and take them into after effects to ensure the shots are all ok. The depth of field for each camera must be set, with a focal distance, rear and front blur. In the screens above the black areas are fully in focus and the white fully blurred with gradient inbetween.

The depth of field blur is then added in after effects where the colour can also be boosted to give a richer image.

HDRI Rendering Test

So I can plan the last stretch of the project I rendered out an 80 frame sequence using full Global Illumination settings using the HDRI lighting 'sky' to get an estimate of average render times per frame. 80 frames with varying amount of detail took a little over an hour, averaging less than a minute per frame is great for the quality so each bumper should take less than 5 hours. Some of the shots in the other bumpers are much simpler such as the space ship so will take considerably less, and the waves in this are the most complex in terms of rays to calculate so this should be the longest but if I use 5 hours as an estimate to render overnight and while at work then I should have plenty of time over the next couple of weeks.

Full quality screens from HDRI GI test (final image will be treated in after effects to make the colour and contrast pop, depth of field and motion blur will also add a lot of quality to the image):

Float - Previs

CN : Float - Previs from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.

First animation mainly finished. Will block out and tighten up the other 4 later in the week before adding any extra details (ie. seagulls and extra fish in this one) to add subtle character. Pleased with how the edit is turning out inside of C4D using the stage object. Can tweak edit and animation at same time to get the most out of shots and render in one pass.

Wireframe renders

Using HDRI lighting, global illumination and ambient occlusion to achieve the lighting shown in the storyboards takes between 20-60 seconds per frame on medium settings, so for animation tests this wireframe cell renderer takes between 0-2secs so for pre-vis renders I will be using this from now on.

Animatic

CN Rough Animatics from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.

Storyboards

Using the character rigs and modeled props in a virtual studio set up I was able to create storyboards that will look pretty close to the final output before starting to animate. Creating some simple poses and setting camera angles allowed me to take screenshots of quick renders into after effects and time the rough edits to a soundtrack (royalty free) to keep everything to a solid 15 seconds.

When animating I can refer to the animatic to ensure the timing will be as planned.

(Animatic in next post)