Extinct animals

Here is a list of animals that are now extinct. I'l be studying creatures and developing my understanding of the principles to animating animals, so I can apply these to animate the extinct animal characters for this project.

http://www.oddee.com/item_88742.aspx list of odd extinct animals

http://animal.discovery.com/tv/a-list/creature-countdowns/extinct/extinct.html useful list of well known extinct animals

http://listverse.com/2009/07/25/10-recently-extinct-animals/ recently extinct

GAME NARRATIVE - intro

I am really interested in game narrative, and have wondered what types of prospects or opportunities this creates for games and their future. 

This requires some research on what a narrative is and its different forms. I'll be looking into games writers, such as Ian Livingstone who creates games like the adventure game books, along with his partner Steve Jackson. 

Also the most successful game series to create story driven games, Final Fantasy series. I'll have a look at the most successful and the least. I'll have to determine the criteria for this. I'l use this case study of the Square Enix's 'Final Fantasy' series to determine this:

Case study

Final fantasy VII - as a game that integrates story with world exploration and character interaction, most fans seem to agree this was one of square enix's best (developers) despite its limited graphics. The characters are some of this series strongest and most memorable, still to this day.
A book on game narrative, suggests the most important part of any stories is its characters and how they interact and communicate. Meaning the setting or location could change and not affect the overall story. This could explain why the story for this edition of the games series was considered so strong. Players could enjoy exploring the world whilst still being able to understand a complex story line through the strength of its characters. The exploration and interaction with the world was used to enhance the complex story line with the growth of the characters and their relationships.

compared to

Final Fantasy XII - This edition of the series took the game in new directions with its games mechanics and battle systems. It was successful in this and most regulars to the series congratulated its new timed battle systems (the prequels had always been turn based before) setting a new precedent for the series to the flow of the game play . However, its story line was much shorter and far less epic than the fans were used to. Therefore in this sense, it was considered a good game but its lack of narrative made it less successful, as its audience expect a more entertaining or engrossing narrative.

Final Fantasy XIII - The writer (Motomu Toriyama) for this edition of the series, had noted that its predecessor had been condemned by fans for the less than epic narrative. In an interview he declared that he felt narrative was the most important part of a game, and that exploration should be kept to a minimum  for a game and its narrative to be successful. But when this was released fans found the story was fed to them through linear game play and little exploration. 

The narrative lived up to FF's usual promise, however, much to Toriyama's dismay, this was not received well when fans complained by the lack of exploration, and confusion over parts of the story as it was explained through long, drawn out (though magnificent) cut scenes. This is an effective method of portraying a narrative in films, but a typical game player would expect shorter cut scenes and to be able to learn parts of the story through exploration of the world and interaction with its characters. The audience for a game will have different expectations to those for a film. Toriyamas method of utilizing narrative through restricting game play this time seemed to be unsuccessful.

So for final fantasy games, it seems the criteria for this to be successful would be:

• Epic narrative - This is best utilized through strong characters. The relationships between these characters is the basis for the story. 

A good example of compelling narrative through the strength of its characters and their growth, could be considered when watching the series 'big bang theory'. In an episode that went behind the scenes, the show explained Chuck Lorre's method of creating interesting and engaging plots by combining a set of characters with its opposite, in the 'Big bang theory's case putting 'nerds' with 'socialites'. Stereo typically these groups of people would not find much time to interact. With Lorre's method, by creating a situation that forces these groups to start living together, the story writes itself as the characters learn from each other and develop the relationships within the group. The success of the show suggests this is a good formula for finding interesting characters and narrative. This method was specifically to portray comedy but it would be interesting to see how this formula is used in other genres.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Lorre

• World exploration - The audience for games is much different to the audience for a film. This has to be recognized and one of the most popular aspects of the FF series its its exciting lands, people and creatures to find. Players enjoy being able to feel free to roam a virtual world. This perhaps makes the virtual world feel more like a real world. In the example, FF XIII tried restricting players with its linear paths, disallowing oppurtunity's to explore areas, with more emphasis on the cut scenes than exploring the world. This was an attempt to make the game into more of an 'interactive movie'.

Motomu Toriyama is a supporter and advocate of the "Interactive Movie RPG" game design created by Yoshinori Kitase and used in Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII.^[6] Toriyama believes his strength is in directing games that are very story-driven.^[10] He also believes that it becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when the player is given a huge amount of freedom to explore.^[9] According to him, the most important aspect of a Final Fantasy game is the characters.^[11] Toriyama has stated that the aim of the game design used in the first half of Final Fantasy XIII was to feel like watching a film. The reason was so the player could become absorbed with the story and characters and not get distracted or lost

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motomu_Toriyama

We can all agree the strength of a story is through its characters, yet the FF series has proved that exploration and game play can be used to tell and complex story. Toriyama's method of story-telling has been designed to be more like a film. It was the first game in the series to use motion control and HD, so its easy to understand why the aim was to produce a game of this caliber  But as this is not what the audience expected this simply made it unsuccessful as a fantasy game.

• Current game devices and battle systems - This has been developed over the series, from turn based  to timed, sequenced battle systems. The updates to these systems have improved the overall flow of the game, whilst keeping in tune with audience's expectation of strategic role playing games.

 The success of the FF series seems to be on the ability to portray a complex story line. The importance of narrative in games has long been debated in the 'ludology v.s narratology debate'.

This disagreement has been called the ludology vs. narratology debates. The narratological view is that games should be understood as novel forms of narrative and can thus be studied using theories of narrative (Murray, 1997; Atkins, 2003). The ludological position is that games should be understood on their own terms. Ludologists have proposed that the study of games should concern the analysis of the abstract and formal systems they describe. In other words, the focus of game studies should be on the rules of a game, not on the representational elements which are only incidental (Aarseth, 2001; Eskelinen, 2001; Eskelinen, 2004).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_studies

 

This links to blog of ludologist: http://www.jesperjuul.dk/ludologist/

 In the case of FF XII suggested that this game was less successful than others in the series because of its lack of narrative. However it explored new game strategies in role playing games, which is important for a game to keep up to date in a rapidly changing and growing market. This will have to be explored more in the 'ludology vs. narrative' debate.

Hans Bacher - pre production artist

Hans Bacher is a production designer, who wrote the book 'dream worlds', an extremely useful source that explains the production process of creating an animate film and the techniques he uses when designing for these films.

He has worked on the designs for many disney films, such as Mulan, Aladdin and beauty and the beast

In his book he explains the production process from how you go from doodles and sketch studies, to the finished polished animated film. pre production procedures:

Visual Research and development - Research for this can be extensive, Disney often allowing average 5 years for visual research before creating an animated film. Looking for inspiration.

Scene design storyboards- he explains aspects to consider, camera rules, composition, Staging and formats, then 'rhythm' and style.

These are a couple of examples of how he explains this through diagrams or storyboards.




This is an example of a storyboard he creates for a children s book of Disney's Mulan. In these images he is looking at the composition of the illustrations in relation to the text on the page. He experiments with different shapes and layouts for the body of text, so it flows visually, with the images.


http://search.babylon.com/imageres.php?iu=http://one1more2time3.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/mulan-chidr-book.jpg&ir=http://one1more2time3.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/mulan-children-book/&ig=http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQnnapRirf5WqfKKad2OTyCdW5212FIwaXbaUi_5iiizyqtmL8FQrBWX7cD&h=1419&w=1600&q=mulan+concept+art&babsrc=SP_ss


http://one1more2time3.wordpress.com/about/ follow his blog


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0045430/ - IMDB profile

Animals in art

David Shepherd
David shepherd is famous for being a conservationist, however his art work is very well known. Its work on wildlife that I'm most interested in. He has quite a range of styles to his work, from detailed, beautiful oil paintings that fill the page or colorful quick studies of an animal. I've picked a few pieces that I liked the most, and also what I felt could be relevant to my own study. http://www.davidshepherd.org  During a class session we discussed looking at art and thinking about it in different ways, such as; narrative, theme, color schemes, composition, mood or atmosphere. This link has some useful tips for looking at art: http://www.ehow.com/how_5115675_analyze-art.html
Great paintings are a good focal point for visual narratives. I believe this because on image must have enough visual information to describe the event, mood, scene or character/s. Composition has a lot to do with this. E.g. These elephants below are pictured very small across a vast landscape, that looms over them (the mountain in the background). However, the way they blend in with the mist as though they are part of the natural scene around them, gives the impression that they are part of this majesty. 



These images also remind me of some of the extinct animals I have researched. This gives me some inspiration on portraying the creatures in an appealing way that enhances the narrative in the animation.

Disneys animal kingdom

This is the making of the trailer for the re-release of Disney's 'Lady and the tramp' Here they are trying to get the canine actors to rein act the iconic scene, where the dogs share their first kiss over a romantic meal. The dogs don't get the idea quite so easily as the animated disney characters. So when creating animal characters its important to act out any human actions, then applies these to

The making of the lion king is a useful documentary into the methods the animators used to create the animation master piece 'The Lion King'

Animating animals/creatures

So the first point of research is techniques into animating animals. I thought it would be a good idea to review the principles in relation to animation of creatures.

There is a note in the 'the animator's survival  kit', Richard Williams about animals (pg.327). This section focus's on the movement of four legged (quadrupeds). There are a few key points, where he uses the principles to show how you would depict the movement of creatures. He also mentions animator Milt Kahl, who was one of Disney's master animators:
http://disney.go.com/disneyinsider/history/legends/milt-kahl

In June 1934, Milt applied to The Walt Disney Studios and was hired to work as an assistant animator on such shorts as "Mickey's Circus," "Lonesome Ghosts" and "The Ugly Duckling," which won an Oscar for Best Animated Short. Over the years, Milt contributed to such Disney features as "Melody Time," "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad," "Cinderella," "Lady and the Tramp," "101 Dalmatians," "The Jungle Book," and "The Rescuers," among others

Kahl swore by The Muybridge Books, finding them to be better than studying films, due to the grids. This is an interesting point to note when it comes to compiling references, as filming the action in front of a grid makes its easier to see accurately slight changes in shape when a person or animal moves.

This video here shows this animator making his references the same way, with a few good tips on animating creatures in 3D:
http://vimeo.com/33660586





I would like to include a study on The Muybridge books, and research the methods to compile my own references in a similar way.

Animators seem to agree that most animals walks are alike. The same principles to animating a human can be applied when animating animals, in this case quadrupeds. This short video gives a quick overview of some of the principles in a walk cycle:


I like this example Williams uses, where the legs of a dog can be considered as separate walk cycles almost, and the body will move and squash and stretch in accordance with the legs. Notice in his drawing how the dogs spine curves as the shoulders and hips drop and rise with each step.


 

Most animals seem to walk in similar ways, but its agreed that the best advice is to gather as many references of your chosen animal to animate. This would include photos, drawings, videos (the Muybridge books - animals in motion), sounds and also information on habits would help in thinking about your animal character. Other information, such as where the animal lives, its diet etc. would help in thinking about the setting for the character.

 Williams includes a very useful
http://www.animationmeat.com/pdf/featureanimation/4leg.pdf

Specialist study 1 - Animal-ation!

OK! So for my specialist study I had decided I was going to focus on character design and scene design, looking at production techniques, in particular story boarding. I was also going to include animal studies, so that I could create animal characters. This is my original proposal:

However, after revising through this original brief it was decided that my specialist study would be on animals. As the competition requests 2d animation only, I'l be using this method to create the piece. I may experiment with 2d styles, e.g. motion graphics effect, using AE (adobe), but will focus on traditional art styles, favouring drawn animation.

This video is a quick audio note on my revised pitch, which i'l likely be doing throughout the project to quickly record thoughts or ideas for progression.

I had a look at entries to the last competition, to gain some insight into what was expected for this genre (time/horology). This clip is last years winner:

I'l be revising the animation pipeline to remind myself of the steps and assist in writing a schedule.  http://cg.tutsplus.com/articles/step-by-step-how-to-make-an-animated-movie/
I've written my own schedule, which I can update in the notes section, and refer to for my dissertation as well as my progress. 
My original idea was to create an animation using lots of symbolism and acting from characters to tell a story. This was to include conversations through the actions and scene. However, as I want to include animals in my specialist study, I have decided these elements can be eliminated from my brief, so I can focus on creating animations and characters based on animals, as I like this as an area of specialist study. Though I have narrowed it down there is still plenty of opportunity to be had from this study and part of my research will include the different techniques in creating animal animation and also some uses, i.e. estimating walk cycles of extinct creatures in science.
My original idea was to have death walk through his hall of time pieces through the ages. However, I found this story difficult to incorporate creature characters, in a way that would fit the brief (time/horology) and not become over complicated.

I then played with a few ideas, thinking about how I could use animals as the characters, remembering that the theme should reflect 'time'. I thought of using a crocodile, who hasn't changed since the age of the dinosaurs, chasing an egg through the time periods. This was a nice idea as the story would have been simple and could be converted into short episodes.     However, ultimately I have decided that to keep the story as simple as possible, I have decided that the narrative will simply consist of two people walking into a zoo and take a trip to see all the animals that no longer exist. The characters, e.g. t-Rex, the dodo, amongst others will be symbolic enough to tell the story of how time has taken them. At the end, the people will approach a set of bars and look in through them at the audience..or out..depending on how you perceive it. 
I think this idea will allow me to focus on the study of animals and movement, without getting distracted by complicated narrative, and still be hard hitting with the symbolism portrayed directly through the characters. This brings an interesting aspect to the study of movement of creatures, as I can study the techniques used, by scientists, to predict movements of creatures that we have never seen before. I am very interested in science and this would be beneficial to know if my animation skills could be used in this field.
The BBC TV program, walking with dinosaurs, will be an example of animations and techniques I will be studying.
I will also look at the making of animal animations, looking at Disney 'lion king' and 'lady and the tramp', as well as case study of 'land before time'. 
I wont be including dialogue in the animation, as I would like to include this element of the brief to tell the narrative through the characters/symbolism. However, as part of my research I will be including personification of animals in film and animation and also VFX on animals in film e.g. lip syncing. So this will include methods on how this is done and how I could replicate this in the future!
And finally I will look at animals in art- so this will include looking at how the artist fits the animal in its environment, does it blend in, stand out, reactions or actions shown through the pose, backgrounds, style, medium etc. This will include one more case study!