Update 4/7/2000 - This animation can cause serious disorientation if the audience isn't careful!. Finally finished the piece worked out really well. The looping working brilliantly with the slight overlap meaning it's hard to tell where one action starts and another begins.

There was some tricky character animation involved which I think I did a pretty good job of although there are still some concerns over weight. It sounds tiny but I'm really pleased with the reaction of the truck as the TV is placed on the back, the character slams it down hard and the suspension reacts really helping with the illusion of weight.



Update 28/6/2000 - I've completed modelling the van, it's very simple but it works in terms of the shot. I spent this afternoon chasing vans around the car park in work to get reference photos, so at least I'm keeping fit.

The next stage tomorrow is to texture the carpark and build the conveyor belt. I'm not looking forward to texturing the ground, I know it's really important to the overall look but it's going to end up being a massive file.



Update 27/6/2000 - The character is now textured and pretty much ready for animation. I'm just adding in the truck and the details to the background now.



I've changed the design of the truck from a large lorry to a small van, the design of which I'm basing on Singapore's open backed vans that transport workers around the place. This is for compositional reasons, as with a large flat sided lorry the shot would look very flat, but the van has small details making up the side so it should break the shot down a little.

Update 23/6/2000 - Well I've patched together an animatic to help me plan the looping and how exactly it'll all work. This is something I've always read about and never really fully explored, but by producing the animatic I'm certain of exactly how the shots will look, the length of the animation and most importantly what I need to model and what can be left out !.

To the left you can see a lighting test with simple block models. Another first for me is that lens flare, I generally hate them but for some reason this one seems to fit the early morning lighting scheme I'm trying to create.



Concept - This has been brewing for a while, ever since I saw an animation called 'Revolver' which features strange characters drawn in a very bold graphic style, animated in complex loops. The whole idea of looping animation interests me as it would fit perfectly with ambient music and could be left playing for ever as an exhibit in a gallery.

I began to imagine an animation where the camera is continually pulling back through the scene only to emerge where it began. This led me to the image of a robot lifting an endless stream of TV's onto a delivery van, with the camera pulling back and back through the TV screens forever.

I'm currently blocking out the animatic for this piece, which is proving pretty tricky in terms of timing and lining everything up so it all fits and doesn't snap at the looping point.