Animation Strategies (Week 1)

Today was our first week back at Ulster University and our first class was animation strategies with Henry and Alec. In animation strategies from the title and from what I got in the introduction class, this semester we will be looking into the softwares unreal engine and Maya and what other softwares and skills the animation industry may require. We will be building on our own ideas, experimentation and following on from last years learning.

I’m excited for this year as in this animation course we can progress straight onto our final year or take a third year to experience a placement within our chosen sector. I think second year is going to prepare me for that placement and going on to apply for further employment after this course, as it will give us the best chance possible at an ongoing career within animation and learning important skills and lessons.

Our first assessment in this semester is to create, plan and design a 3D environment, rendered in Unreal Engine 4. We had been given a number of options for themes including haunted mansion, spaghetti western town, sci-fi city or fairy realm and the two worlds I felt I would be best suited in was fairy realm and the haunted mansion.

I was added into my first choice for this assignment, the fairy realm and was happy to see my group shared to same drive and excitement to create this world as I did. I was added to group three with Andrada, Emily, Meghan and Courtney and our first action was to mind map our initial ideas and start to imagine what our fairy realm would resemble.

To begin our thoughts processes behind our worlds, the tutors asked us to describe our personal vision of our worlds with three different adjectives and to give an idea of how we would start drawing up our realm.

The words I choose were ethereal, wholesome and folklore and in these words, I began to imagine rosy cheeked villagers, mute colours, falling leaves and just a minute and community centred world. I wanted to describe these thoughts and my ideas as best as I could to my group, so I created a rough draft of a mood board on Pinterest.

As you can see the kind of images, I choose to describe my world was a colour palette of browns, greys, beiges, some contrasting dark browns, reds and oranges, natural fairies and aluminous vegetation. I imagined a cold and crisp autumnal morning with leaves blowing and jolly fairies and wanted to keep the wholesome personality of the realm the main theme. As many Irish folklore and old tales from our childhoods have always described fairies as these creatures of nature who were always happy and singing and just were full of light and life, I wanted this to be something I created myself and wanted to draw up that world that would appear familiar through generations.

I included some vegetation in my mood board as in many folklores’ things like mushrooms, flowers or any natural habitat was the fairy’s homes, sources of fun and their livelihood which they built and tinkered. So, I thought incorporating this into our own design would give some content to our world and give us a starting point to create the realms history, what makes their world what it is today and how the generation grew to produce what is now.

To brainstorm our ideas as a group and present it in a clear and precise, the group decided to use the software micro to write up and section off everyone’s ideas and visions for the world. So that we can all see and develop each other’s ideas, giving our input and adding on anything we thought might work within the fairy realm.

Some of the ideas I suggested was taken from some of the typical Irish folklores I heard as a child and was how the fairies would find human items on their travels, incorporate them into them into their world and would find many, but different uses for them. I know characters would not be featured within our world, but the idea that different fairies’ traits and personalities could be seen within their houses and that the houses could be built and decorated to different personalities would be an interesting component to the story.

I also suggested some options for references for our world that would help us develop both the world, story and the artistic style we wanted to create. References I suggested were to use the different seasons and how they could all work coherent at the same time in different sections of the worlds, creating jobs and houses for the fairies to build upon. I also suggested the game, legend of Zelda, the tales of Irish folklore and the Victorian era.

All these references I choose included components, colour palettes, landscapes, personalities and overall a design that I had inspired me personally.

In this being the first day of being put into our groups and just finding out what we are doing this semester. With the quick discussion of all my groups ideas, concepts and references of what we personally what to create for our world. I took some time to draw up a couple of thumbnails on Procreate of what I imagine the rough idea of our fairy realm to represent.

I drew thumbnails of mainly what I imagined the fairy world to look like, the wide landscapes and how the vegetation within the world would be manipulated to the fairy’s everyday use. Thumbnails including mushrooms used as play parks, pathway, chairs and a source of bright light for fairies traveling in the dark and to brighten their town within dawn. I also added in how spider webs could be used as clothes rails, rivers as means of travel and just how the natural animals and flowers of the world are part of the fairy’s everyday life and that they are very nifty and resourceful when it comes to creating a better life.

When I choose to be within the fairy realm, I imagined a very traditional folklore setting and after hearing the thoughts of my group they had many ideas ranging from folklore, to zero gravity and neon elements. This meant that the clear plan for what our final fairy realm would be unclear till we as a group sat down and had a discussion on what world we will develop as a team.