Practical Skills

Well folks, at last we've reached the "Practical Skills" section. This is where I'll be doing any further Idea development, experimentation, script writing, storyboarding and the animation for my final major project, personally I think this is the best part because I get to put all that research I did into practice, and since we're here slightly early, I can take some time to experiment and actually design the main characters before writing the script (which is a nice bonus)

A Little Bit Of Green Screen Experimentation

Video uploaded by me

The main gist of this particular experiment is that I was trying to see if I could incorporate a little bit of green screen humour into this particular cartoon, so I decided to do a remix of the previous black and white test so that I could add in the green screen without tampering with the original scene, because all the black and white stuff was already in place. (all I had to do was add in a little bit more ground and an extra building so that the green screen isn't immediate and I was good to go) Since this experiment happened over 3 streams of 3 separate pieces of software, I'm going to go through each stream individually and reflect on the specific challenges that each part provided.

Production Stream 1: The Dream Stream

In this stream I'd put together a little animation where Ficky Fouse (which is what I've named this temporary Mickey Mouse facsimile, don't worry the main character won't look like this or even have this name) is running to the right, only to end up in front of the green screen which I would later switch to the flat Minecraft world via the magic of editing.

Overall, this part was quite easy for me because of the fact that I'm using video games to get the job done as a pose to software like Blender or Maya where it would probably take me a lot longer to animate due to all the professional tools they have.

So for this animation, all I had to do was create one lone run cycle that would run on its own separate timeline and then once it came time to stop the character, then I'd switch it off and switch to using the main timeline to animate the character like I've done in previous projects such as Super Sheep in Convention F-3 and Captain Cartridge and Friends in Operation Compact Disc.

Speaking of Super Sheep, I decided to add him in here as a cameo in order to add in a little bit of continuity between this experiment and the time I put Super Sheep in Minecraft (implying that he's been trapped in the game for a while), I also decided to have him hold a sign saying "Give me dialogue you coward!" as a tongue and cheek reference to the fact that I haven't yet given Super Sheep any lines due to my dad working at home. Ironically, Super Sheep was the element that took the second longest to pull off (after the animation of the main facsimile of course) because I had to get him into one pose and then create his sign on the spot. (which I was able to do easily thanks to the Dream's sculpt tools being so easy to use)

For the green screen, I decided to use the same method I used to do the green screen for Super Sheep being in Minecraft, which involved me bringing in a text displayer and making the box nice and big and green so that I could keep the same lighting conditions I used in the original black and white test.

Looking back however, I will admit that I probably should have removed Super Sheep's cape again so that it wouldn't look super obvious that I used a green screen (and to maintain consistency with that video where he's in Minecraft), but the point of this is to experiment to see if I could pull something like that off.

Production Stream 2: The Minecraft Stream

That's right, Minecraft is back for round 2, if I keep using it at this rate, that game may even become a mainstay, thus giving the UAL people an even bigger aneurism than when I used Dreams PS4 to succeed. (which I'm still doing to this day)

So for this stream, not much of note happened. All I did was generate a flat world in creative mode and then fly to the right for a little bit (nothing special there), the main thing to note here was that I turned off the daylight and weather cycles so that I wouldn't have to worry about the time of day or the weather changing the lighting conditions (because I'd already done the Dreams footage before hand and didn't want to lose the lighting), although given how quickly I got my footage, I probably didn't even need to do this.

The reason I went with a flat world instead of the default "infinite" world is because it would be much easier to keep flying to the right when you don't have to worry about randomly running into a mountain you didn't see, due to how the entire world is flat. But other than that, nothing of note happened other than me getting the footage and getting out of there.

Production Stream 3: The Share Factory Stream

This is the stream where Minecraft and Dreams PS4 would come together once again, as I used the Share Factory (which is a piece of editing software you can get on your PS4 that's mainly meant for editing together gameplay montages or let's plays)

The reason I was able to get the green screen to work is because I'd put the Dreams footage into something called "Track 2" (a video track mainly meant for recording video commentary), which is the only video track in Share Factory to support the use of green screens in the first place (so I only get one layer of green screen to work with), it took me a little bit of fiddling around to find the green screen function but I was eventually able to get Ficky Fouse to seem like he ran into Minecraft with Super Sheep.

The main challenge here was re-jigging the video timing so that the Minecraft world would stop moving at the same time as Ficky, but other than that it was all easy street and I was able to get the video uploaded.

So Will There Be Green Screen Humour Or Not?

While I do like the idea of including green screen humour, I feel like it won't be worth all the hassle it would cause for me to set up something that would ultimately only get used once in the entire short (because then I'd have to make sure everything is timed correctly and then I wouldn't be able to change anything without uprooting the entire animation), so while I would love to use green screen humour in the future, I don't think it would be a great idea for me to use it in this particular short.

Idea Development (Again)

I know what you're probably asking (unless you downloaded that document from the "Context" section) "again? but didn't you just reach this point?" Well for those of you that don't know, near the beginning of this entire project, I was having a bit of a difficult time writing my project proposal, so in order to help me I decided to do a round of idea development in order to help me decide which idea I liked best:

Unit 8 - Copy.docx

As you no doubt know from the aesthetic of this entire website, I went with the black and white cartoon in the end, and the original plot for that would have been about a plane flight that goes horribly wrong (much like in Walt Disney's "Plane Crazy" short from 1928), but while doing the research, I ended up getting a second Idea as to what the plot could be, so I'm doing a second round of idea development in order to decide which idea gets to be the plot of the cartoon.

Idea 1: A Plane Flight That Goes Wrong

This is the original idea that I had for the black and white cartoon to begin with, the reason I selected this originally was because of how it would allow me to look into the world of animation rather than that of old detective movies. (which is why Detective Griswold is getting shelved for a while)

What's The Plot?

A guy goes on a plane flight so that he can get to his wedding with his girlfriend, but on the way someone else manages to sabotage the flight, thus leaving our hero to try and fix this before they crash and he misses his wedding.

Why Would I Want To Do This?

I think it would be fun trying to work with the limited space of the bi-plane in order to come up with gags that take advantage of the entire plane (I.E: I could have it so that the hero could desperately try and flap the plane's wings in order to get it flying again), plus it'll be really simple to animate considering how most of it will take place up in the sky with just one or two characters on the screen for most of the cartoon.

The main drawback however would be that perhaps the space might be a little bit too limiting in terms of making the cartoon five minutes long (because there's only so many funny jokes one can pull off until it gets stale), and I don't really know much about aviation anyway, so I don't think I'd be able to get all the terminology accurate.

Idea 2: A Guy Saves His Lamppost From Getting Stolen

I know this one might seem a little bit random, but I came up with this idea one night after randomly looking at a lamppost that's outside one of my bedroom window, thus meaning once again, randomly looking at a light source managed to give me an idea. (between this and the board game from level 2, I seem to be on a roll with these bright ideas):

What's The Plot?

In this potential short, a guy finds out that a lamppost he likes has been stolen by an infamous thief who wants to be the first person to steal something that is bolted to the ground (as well as the bolts), so it's up to our hero to chase down the thief and put a stop to their petty thieving.

Why Would I Want To Do This?

The reason I'd want to do this is because it'll give me an opportunity to animate a chase sequence again like I did in my Escape From The City music video, but this time I can fix the issues I had getting the infinite background illusion to work (thus showing that I've actually learned something since the music video project), and I can still keep the character count down (this time, it'll likely be around two or three characters at most), thus saving time on the animation front like I did with Super Sheep in Convention F-3 (where for the most part, Super Sheep was the only character on the screen), and I can get a lot more potential humour out of the situation of a guy trying to catch up to a car on foot. One drawback is that I'd be similar tricks to what I've used in the "City Escape" video. (which might be a bit risky considering this is the final major project of the year)

So Which Of These Ideas Do I Want To Do?

While the bi-plane flight is what got me on the black and white path to begin with, I think I might want to do the lamppost idea instead because I can at least use the concept without risking the ire of Disney's legal department because Disney still has copyright protection over their 93 year old cartoon mouse. (which sucks because if copyright never changed, I'd be able to use characters like Sonic and Mario within my lifetime)

Overall, I'm glad I took my teacher's feedback when writing the proposal, as I likely would have been stuck doing the bi-plane concept because I originally wanted to propose the specific idea instead of the general concept. (which likely would have forced me to save any new ideas I came up with off the back of my research for a later date)

Now that we've got the actual plot laid out, it's time to work on designing the actual characters. (because unlike Detective Griswold, I didn't think to design them beforehand)

Designing The Characters

Finally, after all this time I'm going to actually start designing the characters. The reason this particular step is so important (especially in animation) is because if you don't have any idea as to what the actual characters are going to look like, then you're better off not writing the script yet. (at least in my opinion, although who knows, I could be doing it wrong)

The main reason I personally like to design the characters before writing the script is because it makes it much easier for me to come up with the actual story as a pose to creating the characters afterwards, because if you design a character that's different to what your script calls for, there are two options. You can either change the design to accommodate the script, or you can change the script to accommodate the character design, both of which would require extra work from both the writer and the character designer. (depending on how drastic the changes are of course), so without further ado, let's dive right in:

Much like all my characters these days, I'll be using the power of Pixlr.com in order to get the job done, this is due to the fact that unlike Photoshop, this program is free to use (albeit with certain paid features, but luckily none of the tools are pay-walled) and is actually browser based, meaning I can access it on any computer with an internet browser. (which is most computers these days)

I usually like to start with the character's head first because it's a nice round shape that I can keep undoing until I get it right, and from there I can add in the character's face.

When it comes to a character's eyes, I usually like to go one of three ways, I'll either A. give a character one big eyeball with two pupils like I did with Super Sheep and the majority of his animal buddies:

B. make their eyes just a pair of black ovals like I did for Hex Moother and Retroval Star-Force:

Or C. I'll give them two seperate eyes like I did for Characters such as Cartridge and Billy:

For these new characters, I'll be using the oval method because I feel it'll be the most reminiscent of how actual cartoon characters looked back then.

Lorange and the revenge of the Sonic 2.p

For the character's ears, I wanted to go for that of dog ears, so I decided to draw a small pair of ears, but now that I'm looking at it, he looks more like an ant than a dog. (perhaps I could roll with this and make him a combination of a dog and an ant)

Sonic called he wants his mouth back.png

Something you may have noticed across a lot of my character designs (especially if you've been following me from level 2) is that the majority of them have the mouth appear more to the side like that of a Sonic The Hedgehog Character, the reason for this is because the Sonic series had a hand in inspiring the likes of Super Sheep and friends. (thus meaning that I've taken certain elements of the art-style and applied it to my own characters)

With this character's hair (which I think looks pretty good on the top of his head), I decided to do what I did when creating Billy Billson and take a little bit of inspiration from Super Sheep again. (because dag-nabbit, his DNA runs throughout all the different intellectual properties I've been developing over the years)

for the body, since this is going to be a 1920s style cartoon, I'm opting to give the body more of a dumbbell shape. (similar to what you typically see with Mickey Mouse)

This 1920s aesthetic is also the reason I've chosen to give him rubber hose hands, which are circles where the fingers protrude out of the hand itself, and yes, I lost a significant amount of time thanks to my parents needing to do business and fitness stuff on the computer. (so I may have to design the villain tomorrow)

After I've drawn everything, I then go into a clean up phase where I get rid of any unneeded lines. (I know we've skipped the legs, but we'll cover those when doing the villain)

After I've cleaned everything, it's time to start colouring the character in, although in this case, I won't be using any colours other than black and white, because the cartoon itself is supposed to be black and white too.

Then once everything's finished and the image is nice and cropped, it's time to save the image.

I've decided to name this character "Ruff Bup" because when I was forced to take a break so my parents could do their business and fitness nonsense, I named the temporary image file, I chose to name it "Bup" (after the internet meme where Toad from Mario goes "bup") because it was a quick and easy name to type.

The reason I wanted to make him a dog/bug hybrid is because some species of dogs can actually be quite territorial (which is perfect for a guy who wants his lamppost back), the bug part meanwhile came from the fact I made his ears look like the antenna you'd see on an ant. (albeit much smaller)

Hopefully the villain won't be a major rush job.

Speaking of the villain, I'm going for a more oval shape for his head so that he and Ruff Bup can be distinct from one another whenever the two are in silhouette, you'll still be able to tell which one's which. (don't expect as many screenshots because for the most part, I'm using the same process as I did to make Ruff Bup)

Unlike with Ruff Bup, the villain will have ears that are shaped similar to that of the Devil's horns, the reason for this is because I want my villain, who I'm thinking of making a raccoon because of how they're usually known for stealing people's rubbish, to be immediately recognised as such due to how he shares vague traits with Satan (who is the prince of all evil), but at the same time, I don't want to just use Satan like a lot of the old cartoons did because I want to be a little bit more original.

Ok, so now I've got the chance to discuss the characters legs. You see, the approach I'm taking with both characters is that I'm doing the shorts first and then doing the legs and feet coming out from the bottom, that wat I can make doing said legs much easier on myself this time around.

for his hands, I thought it would be a good idea if he held a sack full of stolen objects, that way if anyone were to casually glance at him, it'll be clear what he does for a living.

And to communicate his criminal nature further, I'm putting him in a classic prisoner's uniform, thus implying that he's an escaped convict in the process.

And boom, one antagonistic raccoon convict. I've decided to name him Rick Coon because I figured it could be a funny play on the word "raccoon" (because the guy's a raccoon himself), and with that I've officially designed all the main characters of this particular short.

We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Another Project Management Update

Project Management 5_A State of Mania.pn

I'm going to be honest, I thought I'd have the characters designed by yesterday, but alas, my parents needed to do some fitness and business nonsense, so I ended up losing a significant amount of time. (thus meaning I had to design the villain the next day)

We Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program

So How Was The Design Process?

I'll admit, Designing the characters themselves was relatively easy considering how last minute this was. (because I was supposed to begin writing the script today) However, I didn't think I'd be doing it for more than a single day, because I was only designing two characters. The reason this process took two days to complete was because in the middle of designing Ruff Bup, my parents had to use the computer in order to do a little bit of fitness and business nonsense that ended up taking longer than I thought it would, so I ended up having to rush Ruff Bup's design so that I could do Rick Coon's design today. (thus meaning I'll have to start writing the script for this short tomorrow)

Overall, I'd say I quite like how the characters look, as the rounded designs and rubber hose limbs really allow these characters to look like they came from the 20s. (which is a good thing because that's exactly what I'm aiming for), although for future designs I would like to move away from doing one-shot designs and give characters multiple designs like I did for characters such as Skulldrix and Petra Popstar:

Version 1

Version 2

The reason I'm not doing this now is because if I give a character too many designs, it'll end up being time I could have used to write the script. Speaking of, it's time to begin writing...

The Script

The Script is a really important part of the production of any film, game, TV Show, stage-show and advert, because it can help you lay out what you want to happen in your production before you fully commit to pulling it off. (be it by filming, animating, programming or even acting out the entire thing live) This can be helpful if the higher ups demand any changes after you turn in your draft of the script (I.E: changes to the storyline, characters and even setting due to things like budget restrictions), as you'll easily be able to re-write the script before moving on to the storyboarding phase, so without further ado, let's begin:

First things first, I've decided to call this cartoon "The Grand Lamppost Caper", because highlighting the lamppost in the title will immediately let the audience know that this is a cartoon where a lamppost is part of the central goal.

Actually, now that I'm thinking about how the title will inform the audience of the plot, I figured it would be a good idea to change the name from "The Grand Lamppost Caper", to "The Grand Lamppost Heist", because the word "heist" has come to be associated with thieves and their tendency to steal stuff. (thus telling the audience that this is a cartoon where a lamppost gets stolen)

The First thing (outside of the title) that we're going to discuss is the way I'll be formatting the locations. For you see, whenever one is writing a professional script, you've got to format it a certain way. For example, when you're establishing the location of a specific scene, you've got to use what I'm going to call the "Location Line" (although it's actual name is the "slug line", I like the name "location line" better, so I'm sticking to it), it goes INT/EXT. (with "INT" meaning it's an interior location like a room in a house, while "EXT" means the scene you're making will take place in the out doors, I.E: The Woods, a field or the vacuum of space) [INSERT LOCATION]. (this could be anywhere in the multiverse from a shop, to another planet or even a different dimension) [TIME OF DAY]. (things like Day, Night, Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Dusk, Dawn, Ext.) The reason this line is important is because if you're story goes between several locations, you need a way to differentiate what happens in each location because if you forget your location lines, anyone that's reading your script will end up getting confused, thus meaning they won't know what's supposed to happen in a certain location. (heck, some of my pre-college work is guilty of this mistake)

Here, we've actually got a few things going on that I want to discuss, the main thing is that I've got a short little description of what I want to happen in this particular scene, the reason I've got to keep this description short is because conventional wisdom suggests that one page in the script should equate to one minute in the actual production, meaning I'd have to do five pages worth of writing for a five minute cartoon like the one I'm making now. (because I don't feel like I'm ready to tackle a ten minute cartoon just yet)

Another thing I want to discuss is the way I've capitalised Ruff Bup's name when first introducing him. The reason I'm doing this is because when I was randomly internet surfing while working on the "Lockdown 3.0" project, I'd learned about how most professional script writers will actually capitalise a character's name when they come up in the script for the first time. I learned this fact from a video by a YouTube channel known as Indy Mogul when they made a video about the formatting of a script. I tired to incorporate this little titbit into the original script for the "Lockdown 3.0" project, but due to time constraints, the script never materialised (although I was able to re-purpose it into the "Griswold's Notes" section after I already took the pictures in the end), so I never got to use that bit of knowledge there. Here however, I get to finally apply that tiny titbit into the script.

The third thing I want to discuss is how I described what Ruff Bup looks like when I first introduce him into the action. The reason I did this here is so that anyone who's reading this will know what the character looks like with just a little bit of information (in this case, I state he's a combination of an ant and a dog), because I'm still trying to keep the description brief. (because again, a page generally equates to about a minute of screen time)

This screenshot more or less depicts the same thing happening as we've seen previously, the reason I'm taking this picture is because much like with a lot of my projects (except the Captain Cartridge re-make), I actually plan on not featuring dialogue. The main reason for this is because my dad is still working from home, and since he and I share the same room when working (that being the living room), I don't really want to risk my dad getting into a zoom call when I'm acting because I'll pretty much have to stop what I'm doing for an average of about half an hour (and when it comes to getting the cartoon done, every second counts), the only reason I didn't do this for Operation Compact Disc (AKA. The Captain Cartridge remake) is because I created that in my personal time (where I could let loose just a little bit more) before entering this level 3 course, so sadly, there'll be no part about how to format the dialogue this time around. (although this time, my decision to not include dialogue will bring this cartoon closer to the silent era, which happens to be what I'm going for)

So since a script doesn't usually contain any visual imagery to help you get across what you want the characters to actually do in the story (since that's what the storyboard's meant for), you've also got to describe each of the various actions your respective characters would take in the final product. (I.E: In this screen shot, I've written about what Rick Coon is currently doing in the story)

After Rick Coon starts looking for his power drill, I wanted to just pan over to Ruff Bup's house where he's getting ready for bed, but then I realised I could use the fact that he's part dog in order to establish why this lamppost is so important to our hero, so I added a minor part where Ruff Bup uses the lamppost as his toilet in order to establish that this is indeed HIS lamppost, thus meaning when the lamppost does get stolen slightly later, there'll actually be personal stakes for our hero. (albeit they'll be rather low stakes)

The reason I'm comparing these two screen caps is because they both contain the exact same slug line (which is the one that goes EXT. RUFF BUP'S HOUSE. NIGHT.), the reason these two slug lines are exactly the same is so that the reader can know for sure that these two scenes take place in the same location, as if the writer was to slightly change that information in between slug lines, the reader might think these are two separate locations altogether. I know it seems stupid to think that two slightly different slug lines for the same location can make the difference as to whether it's clear where the scene is supposed to take place, but the reason this is the case is more for consistency purposes than anything else.

This screen cap exists because it shows off what a script without dialogue is supposed to look like, but if I did decide to add in a little bit of dialogue in here, there's a certain format I'd have to follow in order to make it look professional. Step one: I'd make the lines (which refers to both the character's name and the dialogue below) in the script where the dialogue will take place aligned to the centre of the page.

Step two: Once I've aligned the text to the centre, I'd write in the name of the character that's saying the line in all capitals, that way the reader knows which character is supposed to say the line of dialogue. (and you'd have to capitalise the character's name every time they say a piece of dialogue)

Step three: I'd type in the dialogue the character is going to say in the line below the character's name (the text still has to be centralised or else the text won't be interpreted as dialogue), that way the actors will know what they're supposed to say and when to say it in the script. Sometimes if you want to give pointers on how someone should deliver a specific line, you'll include an extra bit in parenthesis that states how an actor should go about saying the line. This goes between the character's capitalised name and the dialogue itself.

But since I decided this script won't have dialogue, I basically have to let the visuals do all the talking. (which I think I'm getting the hang of since I did do this same approach before with last year's final major project)

Originally, I just wanted to cut to Rick celebrating his perceived win against Ruff Bup, but a couple of lines later, I realised I never implied that Rick actually locked the back door, thus meaning Ruff Bup could theoretically just waltz back in, take the lamppost back and then take his leave without ever confronting Rick again, so in order to force a direct confrontation between the two, I decided to change it so that Rick actually locks the truck and then goes back to driving it, that way when Ruff Bup does eventually show up, it'll give our hero a reason to fight Rick. (thus allowing their conflict to actually play an important role)

And with that, I've officially finished the writing process with three days (including today) to spare!

So How Was Writing The Script?

Overall, I enjoyed writing this particular script, even if there weren't too many unique opportunities to take loads and loads of screen caps like I'm sure the UAL would want there to be, but I feel like if I took screen caps every single time I added a word to the script, I'd still be at the story's opening.

I think my favourite part of writing this script is that I finally got a chance to utilise a piece of knowledge I acquired while randomly internet surfing, unlike with the "Lockdown 3.0" project where I tried to use this new knowledge but then the original plan failed to materialise due to time constraints:

That being said, I kind of thought I'd be done about a day or two earlier because usually I'm able to create these much shorter scripts within a single day or two, but here I ended up taking three days instead but I believe it's likely due to how I've been working on this project of a night during this Easter break, which can have an effect on overall productivity depending on when my dad stops working.

With that being said however, while I do like how this particular script came out in the end, I honestly can't wait until my dad and brother can finally stop working from home (not that I don't love them or anything) because then I'll be able to actually do a little bit more voice work thus meaning once this pandemic's over, you can expect to see a couple of scripts (that aren't made in my personal time like my Captain Cartridge re-make) with actual dialogue in them.

before we move on to the storyboard phase, here's the entire script. Under professional circumstances, releasing the script like this would be a big mistake due to spoilers and potential plagiarists, but since I'm chronicling the production of this project and need all the evidence I can get, it's for the best that I do this.

The Entire Script

The Grand Lamppost Heist

By Sam Gordon

INT. RUFF BUP’S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

We start off in Ruff Bup’s Bedroom, which is a big spacious area with a big window for looking at the lamppost that’s just outside his house, as our hero RUFF BUP, who is a combination of an ant and a dog, is getting ready for bed.

Ruff Bup takes a look out his window at a lamppost that’s outside the front of his house as he heads over to his bathroom in order to brush his teeth.

EXT. RUFF BUP’S HOUSE. NIGHT.

Just outside Ruff Bup’s house, which looks like a big old anthill mixed with a dog kennel, we see our villain RICK COON, who is a devilishly criminal raccoon man that’s around the same size and stature as Ruff Bup but he’s wearing a prisoner’s uniform, as he’s loading some stolen goods into a pick-up truck he stole.

Just after he finishes loading up the stolen items, he stops to look at the lamppost outside Ruff Bup’s house.

It’s here where we go into Rick’s 2D animated thought bubble as he thinks about how stealing the lamppost will give him fame within the criminal underworld.

He then starts sneaking his way over to the lamppost so that he can get a good look at what he’s stealing.

Once he reaches the lamppost, he realises he’s going to need a pneumatic power drill in order to break the screws, so he decides to go search through his stolen truck to find the power drill.

As he’s searching for his power drill, Ruff Bup comes outside in order to go to the toilet on the lamppost.

INT. RUFF BUP’S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

Ruff Bup is coming back after going the toilet so that he can finally get a little bit of rest.

Ruff Bup then takes one last look out his window and sees the truck parked outside, but he doesn’t suspect a thing yet.

Ruff Bup climbs into his dog-bed as he takes one last look at the lamppost outside his window and then he goes to sleep.

EXT. RUFF BUP’S HOUSE. NIGHT.

Rick Coon is still looking for his drill, but he quickly finds it after a couple seconds.

He then gets to work drilling around where the lamppost is.

INT. RUFF BUP’S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

Our hero is sleeping soundly until he hears a faint drilling noise just outside his house.

He then decides to investigate this and finds that Rick is already finished drilling, and he’s now using his innate raccoon strength to carry the heavy lamppost into the truck.

This angers Ruff Bup greatly, so he decides to try and get out there and put a stop to this.

EXT. RUFF BUP’S HOUSE. NIGHT.

Our hero kicks open his front door as he manages to get a glimpse at Rick as he drives off into the night with the stolen lamppost in toe.

Our hero then takes a look around for something he can use in order to catch up with Rick and his truck, only to find a random horse just hanging around witnessing the chaos unfolding.

Ruff Bup gets the brilliant idea to hop on the horse and give chase in the hopes that he’ll be able to catch up to the villainous Rick, as he rides off into the night.

EXT. THE OPEN ROAD. NIGHT.

Our villain rick is driving with a rather smug look on his face as he thinks that no-one is on to his little scheme.

Unfortunately for Rick, our valiant here Ruff Bup has managed to catch up to him rather quickly despite being on a horse.

Rick looks at the camera in confusion as to how a guy on a horse has managed to catch up with a guy driving a truck, but he quickly tries to think of a way to put a stop to Ruff Bup before he can catch him.

Rick then gets the brilliant idea of simply driving faster, as he puts his foot on the accelerator in order to gain more speed, but not before Ruff Bup manages to actually open the back and hold on to the bottom.

Rick decides to quickly check up on whether he’s managed to get rid of our hero, only to find that his legs are still attached to the horse because he’s holding on to the bottom of the truck’s trailer.

Rick then places a brick on the accelerator in order to keep the truck going as well as a stick in the steering wheel in order to keep the truck on a straight path, as he then climbs on to the roof of the truck so that he can get a better look at what’s going on.

Rick realises that Ruff Bup managed to open the back of the truck.

This infuriates Rick as he decides to climb down into the back in order to give Ruff Bup a good clobbering using the drill he used earlier.

Rick then turns on the drill in order to essentially do a rapid fire beat down because he wants Ruff Bup off as quickly as possible.

Ruff Bup uses all his determination in order to try and steal the drill out of Rick’s hands.

Rick tries to put a stop to this by stepping on his hands.

This causes both of them to start tumbling out of the truck, but Rick manages to let go of his drill and leave Ruff Bup and his horse to go tumbling onto the street with the drill in hand.

Rick watches on in pleasure as he decides to laugh at our hero’s misfortune.

We then see that Ruff Bup and the horse are rolling until they hit a rock on the road.

They both watch on in horror as the truck drives off with the lamppost still in toe.

The two of them briefly sulk for a moment, until Ruff Bup looks at the drill, then at his horse.

He then gets the idea to stick the drill into the horse’s mouth in order to make it go faster.

He does this and the horse starts shaking around because of the drill that’s now in its stomach.

While the horse is shaking, Ruff Bup gets on it and points towards the truck’s direction.

The horse then dashes off faster than it’s ever gone before, as the drill has become a makeshift car engine.

Meanwhile with Rick, he’s locking the back door so that Ruff Bup can’t get in again.

Afterwards he goes back to driving the truck, where he proceeds to give a cheeky smile.

Eventually, he hears a faint drill noise along with set of speedy hooves.

Rick sticks his head out the window and finds that Ruff Bup and his horse are actually catching up with him.

This infuriates Rick once more, so he has to re-do the “auto pilot” so that he can keep his trip going as he climbs back to the roof of the truck.

Meanwhile, our heroes have made it to the back of the truck, only to realise it’s been locked.

This gives Ruff Bup no choice but to fight Rick for the key.

So Ruff Bup climbs on to the roof of the truck, where Rick is waiting for him.

The two stare each other down as their fight begins.

They then rush towards each other and begin punching and kicking each other around.

Eventually, Rick manages to get Ruff Bup on the ropes, but our hero manages to swipe the key while Rick’s too busy trying to toss him overboard.

Ruff Bup then manages to kick Rick down and then punch him overboard and on to the street, where it’s implied that he gets run over by a car.

Ruff Bup then climbs back down and use the key to open the truck door and grab his lamppost back.

In a shocking turn of events, Ruff Bup ditches the truck while it’s still moving. Leaving all the other stolen goods to keep going in a straight line.

And then Ruff Bup and his horse ride off into the night back to Ruff Bup’s house as the cartoon comes to an end.

THE END.

The Storyboarding Phase

A storyboard is very similar in principal to a script in that it serves to help convey how the story of your production (be it a film, TV show, cartoon, advert or even a game cinematic) could potentially play out before you or the higher ups commit to the actual production. (although sometimes elements will change mid-way through anyway) Unlike the script where you're just writing down what happens and what the characters say without the aid of visuals, a storyboard is where your rough ideas of the potential visuals come in due to the fact you'll be drawing lots of sequential drawings in order to convey the potential story of the production.

The reason the storyboards are so important is because they can help you decide on how the various scenes in your production will play out and you'll get the chance to establish how you want to frame the various elements of your scene (I.E: what angle we'll be viewing the characters from and where they'll be in relation to the camera) before official production can begin. So without further ado, let us begin.

But First...

I just want to establish that I'll be using the same StudioBinder Storyboard template I used during my final major project from last year:

Image sourced from StudioBinder

Given this fact, I estimate that this production should take up at least 8 batches of Storyboards because doing Super Sheep and Captain Cartridge took me a similar amount of batches and those were also 5 minute productions. (well, Super Sheep was 5 minutes while Captain Cartridge ended up being 6 minutes instead)

Alright, now that that's out of the way, we can finally begin work on the storyboard:

The first thing I'm going to do is type in the name of the project so that I don't have to do it later, the reason people do this is so that the storyboards from one project don't accidently get mixed up with the storyboards of another project, which can especially get confusing if said projects all happen to star the same set of characters.

Another thing I'll be doing is that I'll be using the script for reference as to how much I've actually storyboarded thus far, that way I don't forget an accidentally repeat a piece of the story. (because time is of the essence here)

One thing you'll notice about the way the characters are drawn here is that none of them are on model (meaning the quality of the drawings isn't as good as a regular drawing), the reason for this, which I seem to keep repeating at nauseum every time I get to this point, is because the storyboards are meant to be done quite quickly, and as such the quality of the drawings usually has to take a hit. (because as long as you understand what's supposed to be happening here, it's good enough)

if you're wondering what that arrow is for, it's actually a motion arrow, which is used to show that a character needs to move in a specific direction, in this case, we're able to see that Ruff Bup is coming from the right side of the screen. The reason this arrow exists in the first place is because usually, the characters within the storyboards never actually move (due to how we're not in the animation phase yet), so these arrows serve as a good indicator of the characters intended movement path.

Of course, sometimes these arrows alone aren't enough to fully convey the scene, so just below the square where the illustrations are illustrated, the storyboard artists will usually write down a brief descriptor to help the people looking at the boards to know what's supposed to be happening here. This can be useful for the especially complex shots in those big blockbusters where the characters are flying around all over the place.

OH MY GOSH SOMETHING NEW QUICK GET THE D

In this screen cap, I've decided to do something a little bit different. As I've decided to actually establish where Ruff Bup's end point is supposed to be, the reason I've decided to do this is in order to make it clear as to why Ruff Bup ends up standing still in the next shot.

In this shot, I'm trying to make it so that the audience don't actually have to take their eyes somewhere else if they want to continue focusing on Ruff Bup because he'll be in the same position he was at the end of the previous shot (in terms of the "rule of thirds" grid), that way the audience don't have to re-orientate themselves in order to find the two focal points. (those being the Lamppost and Riff Bup himself)

Another thing you may notice is that the lamppost is drawn slightly differently to that of the first shot. The reason for this is because part of the trade off when it comes to doing storyboards (especially if you're doing them quickly) is that the drawings won't be as consistent as they would be in the final project because by that point, you'll hopefully have already committed to your final idea.

We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Another Project Management Update

Project management 6_The Management Adve

Alright, so this is the week I'm actually supposed to start the storyboarding process. Luckily for me, I managed to get a headstart over the weekend, so if I can keep the momentum going, I'll be animating in no time.

We Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program

One trick I always like to use when doing the storyboards (which I forgot to do yesterday) is that whenever I change panels and there happens to be a different camera angle associated with the next one, I usually like to draw an arrow that leaps over the gap between the two panels and write what the camera is supposed to do at this point I.E: if there's supposed to be a cut, I'd write "cut" (the same would happen if there's meant to be a pan, dolly or what have you, although I'd change the word "cut" for the corresponding action), if the next panel was actually on the line below, then I'd have the arrow pull a Pac-Man and warp from one side of the screen to the other in order to save me from drawing needlessly bendy lines.

How to throw authenticity out the window

Here, I'm doing a little something that would be quite difficult to pull of in a 2D animation, as I've decided to introduce Rick Coon via a Pan and Dolly towards him doing his crime. The reason for this is because while I want to use Dreams PS4 to make a cartoon that looks like it could have been made in the late 1920s, I also want to take advantage of Dreams PS4 being a 3D program. I believe that taking this approach will allow me to have a best of both worlds type situation where the story is something someone in the 20s would have come up with, but it would also feature camera movements like in a modern animated production

You may notice that I decided not to give Rick his stripes in these storyboard panels, the reason for this is because it'll save me more time to worry about that when making the 3D model later, thus allowing me to get this storyboard done faster.

getting rid of the unimportant elemets.p

Here you may notice that the window from earlier is now gone. The reason I didn't bother drawing the window this time around is because it's no longer needed, and any elements that aren't important any more can simply be ignored for the time being. (although in the final production, things like that window would need to exist at all times or else it would make the animation seem sloppy due to random objects disappearing and reappearing constantly)

And it's with great pleasure that I can say that Batch one is finally complete, but I've still got a long way to go if I want to get this done on time.

But before we move on, if you look at the "Layers" section (which can be found on the right side of the screen) you may notice that I've been doodling on a separate layer to that of the actual storyboard layer. The reason I'm doing this is because once I'm finished with that particular layer, I can make it invisible and just do a new layer where I'll make the next batch, thus meaning I don't have to worry about opening a new tab every time I finish making a single batch.

Here we can see that I've decided to draw a little box with lines coming out the four corners around Rick's thought bubble. That box actually represents where the camera will end up in this particular instance as the arrows I attached to the four lines are pointing towards the box, which indicates that the camera would need to zoom in on the subject. (the opposite would apply if the lines were pointing away from the small box.

Another thing I should note is that just because this is a 3D cartoon, it doesn't mean there won't be any 2D at all. The reason for this is because much like Captain Cartridge and Friends in Operation Compact Disc, I plan on having at least one scene that uses 2D assets in order to move the plot forward but in this case, I'll be using Rick's thought bubble as an excuse to transition into the 2D section. (because with Cartridge, I used his space whiteboard as the means to do a 2D section)

Sometimes when drawing things quickly, you may need to label what they actually are so that the person looking at the storyboards knows what to tell the artists and animators to draw and model once production begins, this is the case for the "crowd" I drew for Rick's 2D fantasy sequence, which I've had to label as "The Crowd" so that I don't forget what I'm supposed to be doing once the animation process starts.

And like that, batch two is finished. If I can keep up the momentum of doing one or more batches per day, I'll be done by the beginning of next week.

If an action (I.E: Rick tapping his foot) is something that gets repeated during the course of a particular scene, you can communicate this fact by simply drawing the classic double arrow (and in this case, the word "tap" getting repeated multiple times) in order to let the higher ups know that they'll need to make an animation cycle (if what you're producing is an animation) for the action you depict in the storyboard.

And now we've completed batch three, and if you're wondering about why Knuckles from the Sonic The Hedgehog series is here, it's for an in-joke involving the fact this is the third batch.

Here, I've decided to have Ruff Bup whistle a tune while he's peeing. However, I've decided to leave out any specifics when it comes to what tune he'll be whistling because it'll give me room to improvise and hide a potential Easter egg, this Easter egg could come in the form of Captain Cartridge's theme, my original ending theme or even the tune Mickey Mouse whistles in steamboat willie. The possibilities are endless. (although tunes that are currently under copyright protection are off limits)

And now batch four has been completed. You may have noticed that as I've gone on, I haven't been taking as many screen caps as I was in earlier batches, the reason for this is because I feel it'll save me from repeating myself a lot while allowing me to make the boards themselves at a slightly faster rate.

d boards batch 5_ the adventure part 1.p

And now batch five is done. While I was doing this batch I ended up realising that I may have severely under estimated how many batches this might take, at first I thought it would take around eight batches to complete since Super Sheep only took nine, but I'm on batch five already and the inciting incident has just happened, which means this story may end up taking roughly thirteen batches to complete. (meaning we're getting into Captain Cartridge numbers now)

Here, I've written the word "slam" in order to indicate that the door will hit the wall with a large amount of force, the reason this instance of me writing things down was screen-cap worthy is because I also decided to add in a visual indicator like you see in a lot of old comics in order to emphasise the hard impact between the door and the wall, thus getting the point across visually to the animator, which in this case is myself because that's how these projects usually work.

d boards batch 6_ The adventure part 2.p

And now batch 6 is finished, but now I'm starting to get concerned because it's already been a week and I've only done 6 storyboard batches thus far, hopefully I can pick up the pace next week, especially since half term is over at that point.

Since I've not got much new to talk about I might as well mention this horse, who I'll have to properly design once I've finished making the storyboards. (that way I can keep Disney off my back, because again, they still own the rights to ninety year old cartoon characters) The reason I decided that Ruff Bup should use a horse in the script despite the villain using a truck is because it'll make our hero seem like he's at a disadvantage.

It's just dawning on me now that I never actually mentioned my use of sight lines. The reason I felt the need to use these sight lines is to let people know what I want the characters themselves to look at in a particular scene (I.E: here, Rick's looking at his rear view mirror), the reason I didn't feel the need to mention them until now is because I actually want to make the sight lines a part of the animation itself. (much like in old Felix The Cat shorts)

Batch seven is officially done. I'll be honest, I probably should have mentioned the horse and sight lines the first time I drew them because it would have given me something else to talk about while I was making those particular batches and it would have added more oomph to the reflection of those particular batches, but now I've got to move on to batch eight.

We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Another Project Management Update

Project management 7 The Chaos Managemen

At this point, the chances of me getting the storyboards done on time are becoming slim to the point where you'd be concerned they had anorexia, but seeing how this week is when we're officially back to doing college work, I get a feeling I can turn this sucker around due to how I'll be working all day for the next 3 days. (this one included)

Today I also found out that when it comes to the animation process, I can actually choose to work from home during days when I'm supposed to be in college due to their lack of PS4s (if it gets sanctioned of course), which could mean I won't need to do the expanded research section. Right now I'm a little bit on the fence with this idea because on the one hand, I was able to complete the music video with this handicap in place and I'll get to see my friends in college as well as fix up any inaccuracies I made along the way, but on the other hand this is a way bigger project than the music video and I could use the extra time to help guarantee that it gets finished. Since this is the case, I'm choosing to sit on this decision until I get closer to the production process.

We Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program

For the truck that Rick Coon will drive in this short I can actually save quite a bit of time making it because when I made the Super Sheep music video, I'd already made a model for the truck Hex Moother drives, so all I'd have to do is re-texture the model and add in a trailer area and then I'm good to go on that front. The reason for this is because Dreams PS4 lets you re-mix creations you've made in order to make something new out of it, and the best part is that the re-mixed creation doesn't replace the original, as it's considered a separate entity entirely.

something else you may have noticed is that whenever the characters are close to the screen, they're a lot more detailed than if they were further away. The reason for this is that as the characters get closer to the screen, it opens more room on the body to add in the finer details. (I.E: Rick's nose goes from being a single lint to a full oval when he's close up)

And that's batch eight down the hatch (and so begins the time where I begin doing multiple batches a day), I'll be honest, it was quite nice doing two batches in a single day for a change, but I think that this point might be the most tedious of the bunch because instead of doing one batch per day, I'll instead be making multiple batches over the span of several hours. (just my luck. the least tedious method of storyboarding also turns out to be the least viable)

Batch nine is finished and ready to roll. Something you may start to notice as I go on from this point onward is that I'm beginning to cut very key corners in order to get these batches done on time, the reason for this is because I only have this week left to get it done, and even then, that week is shared with the asset and shot lists, meaning I've got to work quickly. (good thing I'm almost out of potential techniques to screen cap)

Here, you can really start to notice the art quality deteriorate, particularly with the hands due to the urgent need to get this done as fast as possible.

Batch ten has now been done. I've got to be honest, the tedium I felt with Super Sheep and Captain Cartridge's storyboarding process is starting to creep its way in here due to how I'm now doing more than one batch per day, and we're officially poised to surpass Captain Cartridge numbers, meaning when I do batch 14, I'll have done more batches than I did for Captain Cartridge.

This whole time I've been naming the batches after the mainline Sonic games (Sonics 1, 2, 3: And Knuckles, Sonic 4: episodes 1 and 2, Adventures 1 and 2, Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colours and next will come Sonic Generations and after that are Sonic Lost World, Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces), and I'm beginning to run out of mainline Sonic games to name them after unless the next one gets announced real soon, but no big deal, I could always do the spin offs. (as well as Sonic CD since I forgot to do that one earlier)

and now we've finished batch eleven, and it's back to having nothing much to talk about as I do these batches, since I've run a lot of the talking points quite dry.

Here, I've decided to go off script and actually change it so that Rick doesn't have time to get back to the drivers seat before hearing the faint noise because I feel doing this might actually improve this scene by speeding up the pace and cutting out the pointless de-tour back to the driver's seat.

We've finished Batch twelve gang. Looks like I was right about us being about to surpass Captain Cartridge numbers after all, as now I'm only one away from batch thirteen.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we've reached Captain Cartridge numbers, as batch thirteen is now finished, and since the story isn't over this means we'll be breaking the record for most storyboards done for a single project of mine.

Here, I've taken a slightly different approach to drawing the characters than I normally would, as due to the fact they have two circles connected by a rectangle, I've taken to drawing their bodies first and then their heads. This started near the end of the last batch, as during the second to last panel where Rick is holding the key, I was able to use this approach to get a much more dynamic pose out of him than I would otherwise.

And now we've officially exceeded the amount of Storyboards done for Captain Cartridge, as now I've completed batch fourteen. (honestly didn't think it'd take this many batches to create the storyboards thus far)

And now I'm running out of ways of saying I finished the batch I'm currently on (at least in english anyway) By the way I finished Batch 15.

My fellow gamers, it is with great pleasure to say that I have officially completed the final batch (batch 16), meaning I've finally completed the entire storyboarding process for this cartoon! (there was much rejoicing and a cheeky Super Sheep cameo)

So How Was The Storyboarding Process?

I'll be honest, while I did enjoy doing the storyboards, I'm kind of glad this part is over because today, it was starting to get a little bit tedious grinding out storyboard batches one after another. (especially during today and yesterday when I constantly kept running out of potential screen-shot worthy moments the closer I got to the end)

Honestly, I'm kind of glad I got that head-start during the half term (even if it wasn't as long as it could have been), because it helped me realise that the reason I kept feeling a sense of tedium when doing doing Cartridge and Super Sheep's storyboards was because I was trying to grind out multiple storyboard batches within a single day, because when I did get into the "one batch per day" method over the half term week, the task wasn't as tedious to do as it was in this final stretch because despite how much I enjoyed doing things this way in the half term, the "one batch per day" method wouldn't have proven very viable if I wanted to get this done on time.

I'd say the part I enjoyed doing the most was definitely the drawing because it allowed me to create a rough idea of what the visuals might look like once I get to the animation portion, but unfortunately I won't quite have time to do an animatic because now I've got to work on both the asset and shot lists. (which seems to be just an old story at this point)

While I didn't enjoy doing the writing part as much, I figured that if I added a little bit of humour to the descriptions I could make doing this part a little bit more of a comedic endeavour (since I'm known for my totally hilarious and not at all stale jokes), and I've got to say I do like how some of the writing came out, particularly with the parentheses implying that Rick got ran over by his own truck.

This was also a good opportunity for me to tweak the story ever so slightly, as I was beginning to feel as if I didn't I'd be drawing things that could easily be cut out of the story (like Rick going back to diving his truck), the reason I tend to do this instead of simply re-writing the entire script is because I can see if my changes will actually work to the story's advantage thus saving me from doing multiple potentially unneeded drafts where I basically write the same thing with minor alterations made to it. (and then I would then have to re-do the storyboards and waste even more time and risk not even getting the project off the ground)

So in other words, I liked doing the visuals and the writing did end up becoming a little bit more comedic in the end, but the final stretch is what really made things tedious for me.

Now that I've finished this, it's time to move on to the next step, which is to make both the asset and shot lists.

The Asset And Shot Lists

An Asset List is where you determine what props, sounds, music, equipment, locations, software and characters you'll need for your production, this is important because it lets the people in charge of production know what they'll need in order for production to continue moving forward smoothly.

A Shot List meanwhile is a list of the various shots that you'll need to capture in order to mimic the storyboards as best as you can. The reason I'm putting these two together is because they're my least favourite part of production, but since I always get them done relatively quickly and end up with little to say on them, I figured I might as well put them together so that I can get this part over with.

For those of you that don't know, when I was doing the final major project last year I screwed up the order in which I was supposed to do things because I did the asset list before I started work on the storyboard after I'd made an asset list. That ended up being a horrible Idea as now any assets I drew that weren't on the list had to be added in there after the fact (which made this part a bit of a mess to say the least), luckily I learned my lesson and did the storyboards before hand this time, which should make things much less messy.

So without further ado, let's begin.

The first thing I usually like to do at this point is create tables for where the asset lists will end up going, that way I don't end up getting lost later on. Oh, and one minor note, I usually like to do separate lists for each asset type (I.E: Music, Sound, props, ext.), that way I can quickly identify what I have or still need to get by looking at the specific list rather than have to sift through one big list looking for what needs checking off.

I also like to do this "Separate tables for each category" because once I'm done identifying what I need in one category, I can simply delete any empty cells without any real repercussions. (if I identify any extra things in a category I've already finished I can always re-add the needed cells anyway)

An Asset List.docx

And now I've finished the asset list (told you it wouldn't take long), it was one of the easiest things for me to do in a long while although having said that there's not really too much else I can say about it (other than the fact I'll probably end up realising I forgot something important later on), so let's move on to the shot list.

Much like the asset list, I have to create a big table, but since I know that a 2 by 8 table isn't going to be enough to contain all of the shots I need, I'll have to do a little bit of copying and pasting in order to get a bigger table.

Another major difference is that I also have to look at the storyboards in order to identify what shot types I need to put in to the list.

A Shot List.docx

Aaaaaaand I can officially declare the shot list (and by extension this entire section) complete. It did end up taking me slightly longer to create than I thought it would given how I had to use the storyboards as a reference point and I ended up having to go back to add to the asset list since there were things I'd forgotten about when making it originally. (the version of the asset list you can download is not the original, as I've had to add in the things I forgot to previously, like the locations, Rick's key and the drill) At least I had the shot list to save me on that particular front, because if I'd realised any later that I'd forgotten about items that were key to the story, I'd probably still make them but they wouldn't officially be on the list.

How Was Making The Asset And Shot Lists?

I'm going to be cut and dry on this one, doing these was a bit boring because all I was really doing was listing things. On the plus side, it was easy for me to get these done quickly which is good because then I could get them over and done with as quickly as possible.

The main thing that is difficult about doing these is finding screen-cap worthy moments after the first two because I'm just doing the same thing over and over again with little to no variation, so while it's easy it's also not very exciting.

That being said, I'm glad this part is over because now I get to start actually working on the assets themselves. But first I should design things like the horse Ruff Bup actually rides so that I don't end up making them up as I go along.

Back To The Drawing Board

Since I only designed the main characters and did the horse during the storyboarding section, I figured I might as well give the horse a proper design before I jump right into Dreams PS4/5 all willy nilly.

So we're going back to the drawing board on this one.

Essentially, what I'm doing here is taking the design I made for the storyboards and trying to add more detail to it

I'll admit, for my first proper four legged design, this is turning out A-OK, though that's probably due to how I had to draw the same creature constantly via the storyboards, and in fairness he is standing still which is the easiest pose you could do.

The horse has now officially designed (for real), I tried to give off a vague "Horace Horse-collar" style (with the horseshoe on his neck and the rounded face), but I didn't want it to be TOO similar because as I've stated throughout, Disney still owns the rights to characters that are almost a century old, and I could STILL get sued for this horse if I didn't play my cards right in the aesthetic department.

With that being said, I don't think this looks too bad for a third attempt at doing a four legged creature (the first was back in high school where I did a Super Sheep comic that ended up getting canned after I started doing work placement and the second was last year with the character known as "Commander Sur-Vey"), although again, this is more than likely because I've been drawing this horse over and over again for the storyboards, otherwise I'm sure this first go wouldn't have turned out anywhere near as good as it did, as I hear those are usually more difficult to do than a bi-pedal character. (although I did take a more cartoonish style with this horse rather than going for realism, and I did also gun for a standing pose, which is the most bog-standard pose one could do)

But the thing is we're not done yet, as Now I've got to do concept art for Ruff bup's House.

For Ruff bup's bed (which I initially came up with in the storyboards), I wanted to have it be a combination of a dog basket and the beds that the ants from the movie "The Ant Bully" sleep in (because that movie popped in my mind again after a good few years), because it plays into the fact that Ruff Bup here is a combination of an ant and a dog (because I originally wanted just a dog, but then his ears kind of looked like an ant's antenna (albeit much smaller) so I decided to embrace it and just make him an ant-dog hybrid instead. (whatever prevents Disney from suing me)

The reason I've decided to stick a bunch of cracks in the walls and floor is because I want it to seem like Ruff Bup lives in a house that's quite dirty with just a black and white colour scheme due to how it'll be a big dog kennel crossed with an ant hill.

It may appear as if the rules were broke

It may appear as if I've just broken the rules by using shades of grey, but in a lot of the old cartoons from those days, if you look into the backgrounds, you can find various shades of grey are used to give the world a little bit more depth, so I'm still within the boundaries. (it's only the characters that can't be grey)

Mickey gets his torso streched because p

Image sourced from Feeling Animated.Wordpress

And I'm now officially done with conceptualising the inside of Ruff Bup's House (or at least the basic room anyway), it was quite easy for me to do because I just had to make a lump with a dog-basket on it and then give the walls and floor some cracks and I was good to go, but now it's time to do the exterior.

Right now I'm doing the ant-hill roof first because it'll make the Dog-Kennel part of the house much easier to mix is afterwards.

And after a few minutes I've finished conceptualising Ruff Bup's House (from the outside), this was quite easy because I was just doing a quick sketch rather than going in with lots of detail in mind because that's what the actual asset production is for.

So How Was Your Trip Back To The Drawing Board?

I'd say this quick trip to the drawing board was quite a productive one, as I was not only able to design the horse, but I was also able to do a little bit of concept art for Ruff Bup's house which will certainly help when I'm actually designing everything. (which I will actually be doing shortly once this bit of reflection is finished)

I'll be honest, I kind of wish I'd designed the horse just before I did the storyboards, that way I would have a reference model that I could downgrade rather than using the storyboard version to create the real thing (and it would have been a bit of a time save for this part as well), but at the same time, I'm glad I was able to accidently practice drawing a four legged creature again because I actually think this horse (at least in terms of his body) looks just slightly better than Commander Sur-Vey (although I'll let you be the judge of that)

Well now that I've done all the prep work, it's time for me to get to work producing the assets. So in other words, it's gamer time.

Asset Production Day 1: Roads, Grades And A Music Track

So today, I managed to get quite a few of the easier assets done much quicker than I could have anticipated (particularly with the music track), In the case of the road and the tree, I think the reason for this is because of the relative simplicity of these particular assets because for the road, all I did was make a thin cuboid and then paint white lines on it using the spray-paint tool which was made even easier by the fact that I could turn on the mirror guide and cut the amount of lines I needed to make in half. Man, with powerful features like these mixed with their simplicity makes Dreams PS4/5 pretty over-powered (or "O.P." for short) when it comes to doing college work, although to be fair, I am taking the simplest approach possible when it comes to making the assets, because of course adding realistic detailing would take a little bit longer to do.

For the Tree, all I did was make a couple of cylinders and then add in darker spheres in order to represent the leaves (ala Super Mario 64), afterwards I painted a couple of dark spots to add in a little bit of detail. I did originally want the main cylinder to get thinner as it got closer to the top, but I couldn't quite get it to work the way I wanted it to in the end, so I scrapped the idea entirely. (The tree and road assets are mostly meant to help with the illusion of movement anyway, so they'll be constantly emitted at a quick rate)

As for the music, I'll admit, I didn't expect to end up messing with the actual melody to make it different, but you know what? I'm glad I did this because now it means this cartoon's ending theme will sound a little bit different from Captain Cartridge's instance of the theme, which could be used to imply that this tune ended up evolving over the course of time until we reach present day.

As for the truck, the only major changes besides the addition of the trailer (those of you that saw the blog posts about the music video project on the other website would have got a hint of this particular addition) was that I had to change the position of the steering wheel and also the fact that I de-saturated the colour palette to the point where the truck and the wheel are both black and white. Speaking of de-saturation, at first I thought I was going to have to repaint the main body all over again, but then I remembered that sculpts in Dreams have their own saturation bar, which allows you to mute the colours entirely on the fly. (thus saving a ton of time on re-texturing) As for the trailer, I had the idea to actually model only one half of it in mind, just in case the camera wasn't able to fit into the entire thing, but luckily for me, I ended up making the trailer big enough to fit the characters and have the camera inside without any modifications being required. (lucky me)

Oh, and then there was the lighting and the grade and effects. I simply took those from my black and white test and made a night version, but it's here where I get the feeling I'm going to be running into a few visibility issues due to the way the shadowy areas make the black parts of the characters blend in with the environment, this could mean I may need to change the time of day the cartoon takes place in, but I know there are some alternative ways I could try and fix this, but there's no guarantees.

Overall I had quite a productive little hour making these assets as well as storing them in a new collection I made on-stream so that I could have an easier time grabbing the needed elements when making the cartoon (like I said, Dreams is fairly O.P.), but I can't wait to start making the characters because it'll be cool trying to translate a bunch of 2D designs into 3D once again.

Asset Production Day 2: Ruff Bup's House, A Sack And A Lamppost

Today, I mainly did Ruff Bup's and The Lamppost, but in between doing those, I also created Rick's sack as a static prop. Overall I'd say doing all three of these things was fairly easy, but let's delve a little further into each asset and see how I did them.

So for Ruff Bup's house, I decided to make it a separate prop instead of baking it into the "Ruff Bup's Neighbourhood" set is in case I decide to re-use it in future projects. (either to make another character's house or simply re-use the prop whole sale as a background element) Speaking of, I decided to try and model out Ruff Bup's Room within the prop itself so that I wouldn't have to create an entirely separate scene because while doing that would have allowed me to make the interior bigger that the physical space the house is capable of, I don't want to break the pacing by constantly having to switch scenes when animating. (plus it'll save time when I'm "editing" later) I also decided to add in a little bit more detail into the house and sculpt a bone model so that I could stick a bunch of copies inside the walls and floor (that way I could try and capitalise on the concept of "Mise-En-Scene" by implying that Ruff-Bup likes to bury his bones inside his house), I also decided to do Ruff Bup's bed using the sculpt tools while I was at it (so technically, this one asset is actually a multi-pack), Overall I'd say this process was quite easy for me to pull off because I got to actually create multiple assets at once, but the reason this stream was split in two was because in the middle of doing Ruff Bup's house some relatives came over to my front door, but after talking with them for a bit it was back to making Ruff Bup's house. My favourite part however was actually using "paint mode" to draw the cracks seen throughout Ruff Bup's room, the reason for this is because drawing those lines allowed me to add a little bit of further detail via the use of 2D elements. (which I think adds to the cartoonish look I'm trying to go for here) While I was making Ruff But's house, I decided to use Super-Sheep as a scale of reference becuase I want both Rick and Ruff Bup to be around the same size as him (because it simply feels right if a lot of the cartoon animals are smaller than your average human being) and I figured it would be useful for making sure Ruff Bup can fit through his own door and look out his own window.

Moving on to Rick's sack, this was the easiest asset I had to make today because all I did was use the sculpt tools to create a static model for it. That being said however, the fact that it's static means I can't move the individual parts around due to how I modelled the entire thing in a single sculpt. Other than that, there's not much I can note here, so let's move on.

As for the lamppost, this was where I started to use a little bit of logic in order to give it the ability to be turned on and off at will. I pulled this off by making the "bulb" and the main post two separate sculpts, and then I added a light gadget and tied the activation of the light to a key frame which not only turns on the light gadget but also gives the bulb a nice glow effect (because Dreams can also be used to make games you know.), doing this wasn't too complicated as I was able to stick the key-frame in a micro-chip despite the fact that I could have easily placed it anywhere around the post (because micro-chips are cool), I was also able to do rudimentary screws for the bottom of the post thus meaning Rick actually has something to look at when he notices the screws. (that was interesting)

As for the black and white grade, I was able to mess around with it a bit and actually found that turning the contrast down made the shadows seem less visible, thus allowing me to see the shadowy bits better. (which means I won't have to worry about changing the time of day the cartoon takes place in)

Before we go, I just wanted to mention that while I was playing Minecraft, I found out about a social media post the college had made about the full time return to college:

The potential dooming of my FMP and video games as a viable animation medium for college work is brought to us by twitter.com

I always had a feeling this day would come eventually, but this news still spooks me to the core because I've basically been relying on video games to succeed basically ever since I got to college. But at the same time, I expected that the pandemic would have been over by the end of 2020, so video gaming still got me much further than I ever thought possible. But on the other hand, I recently found out that basically all PS3 and 4 units have a ticking death clock inside of them that would render even the physical games unplayable due to checks the consoles make in order to get the correct time (as if losing the ability to purchase potentially thousands of digital only games on PS3 and vita due to their PlayStation store's servers shutting down wasn't enough), so if this tweet doesn't murder the chances of games being an animation medium, the inevitable march of time certainly will. on that note, here's the set up I've been using to animate cartoons this entire time. (this is the set up I'm currently using to make The Grand Lamppost Heist):

A base PS4

A digital copy of Dreams for said PS4

And a duelshock 4 controller

Now I'm not entirely sure whether this WILL be the last college project I'll ever get to make using this set up, but if it is... well... It's been an honour getting to prove the video game nay-sayers (which mainly consists of the mainstream news outlets, overbearing parents and even most teachers) of the world wrong by succeeding using the power of gaming. So I'd just like to thank the folks at Media Molecule, because if Dreams didn't exist I wouldn't have gotten where I am today.

Asset Production Day 3: A Bunch Of Sounds, Two Thirds Of The Main Cast And A Little Original Music

I'd say today was actually super productive and quite fun due to the variety of things I got to make today, from sound effects to music and even two thirds of the main cast.

First I made a good chunk of the sound effects using the music tools in Dreams PS4. The reason I'm using musical instruments (specifically drums) instead of actual sound files is because in a lot of the old "silent" films, they would have had to have a guy play drums in creative ways so that they could have sound effects in these old flicks due to the lack of synchronised sounds in those days. Doing this was rather easy as I could simply use Dreams' music sequencer in order to draw the notes in there.

Doing the impact sounds was easy enough (just doing a quick drum beat that ends as soon as it starts) but when it came time to make the sound for the engine, the only thing I knew was that I'd have to sequence one drum note and copy and paste it a bunch in order for the game to play the instrument in such a way to where it would sound like a car engine. After a ton of fiddling around, the "guitar clock" instrument ended up coming in clutch thanks to the way the sound was able to give off that nice rumble effect, thus turning a guitar into a truck engine, and as a nice bonus I can even use key frames to simulate the engine gaining speed. The sound for the horse running was about as easy to make as the impact noises, as all I needed to do was create a drum beat that mimics that of a horse running and I was golden.

After I created the sound effects, it was time to make Ruff Bup and Rick (AKA: The main characters), making Ruff Bup was the most time consuming of the bunch as I had to do quite a lot to put him together. The first thing I did was whip out Super Sheep so that I could use him as a scale of reference when adjusting the proportions of the puppet (which is one way you could make characters in Dreams) because I want to make it so that Ruff Bup and Rick are roughly Super Sheep's size (just in case I want to do a crossover some time in the future), to save time I also decided to steal Super Sheep's hands (which I didn't actually create) so that I wouldn't have to worry about rigging fingers, but one thing I did for Ruff Bup that I didn't do for any of the other characters was create an alternate set of hands which consists of two balls (one for each hand) so when the characters make a fist I can swap out the actual hands for the ball fists if I want to.

I also had to modify the pelvis and head so that they were more circular in nature (that way I could incorporate the dumbbell design that's seen with characters like Mickey Mouse back in the 20s) and I added some extra detailing to his hands, legs and arms in the form to make it seem like he's wearing shoes, shorts and gloves (because if I didn't the sudden colour change on his pelvis, hands and feet would look weird and out of place. I also decided to have Ruff Bup's antenna ears be separate models from the rest of this head (unlike Super Sheep and friends where their ears are just a part of the head sculpt that can't be moved independently, but I can change that aspect later on) so that I could move them around once the animation process kicks in.

Believe it or not however, Modelling the extra bits wasn't the part that made this part time consuming, because that would actually make sense. Instead what made this part so time consuming was actually drawing the character's face. The reason I chose to draw the characters face on the head model instead of just using separate heads is because paintings in Dreams PS4/5 can contain a maximum of 100 frames (which is way more than I ended up using) and I can switch between these frames using the key-frame gadget (which can also used to animate... well everything), plus I've been doing this approach ever since Super Sheep in Convention F-3 and it's been a reliable method ever since, but it is time consuming because I have to paint each part individually (meaning that the eyes, mouth and in this case, eye brows are all painted separately) multiple times with each frame being a different expression. After I've done THAT, I then have to actually put in the key frames and make them activate a single frame of the painting at a time and then I have to duplicate said paintings and mirror them to the other side of the face, and for the mouth specifically I have to set up two more key-frames that get activated when the corresponding trigger zone detects the camera so that I can do the Sonic side mouth thing with whatever character I happen to be making.

So after all THAT was finished, I also added Ruff Bup's Tail (and I gave it a wagging animation so that I wouldn't have to worry about doing it later on) and I painted the "R" that's on his short and I was pretty much done from there.

With all that, you'd think Rick Coon would be just as, if not MORE time consuming to make than Ruff Bup... But that's where your wrong for one simple reason. I decided to make Rick Coon a "Remix" (basically taking an asset I or someone else has made and making something new out of it) of Ruff Bup, thus meaning most of the work was already done. I simply modified his head to be a little bit more oval like and then I did a little bit more re-texturing in order to give Rick black fur and his stripy prisoner's uniform. So in other words, Rick was literally a copy and paste job with a few minor tweaks here and there. (thus meaning I got a two for one deal on the character design)

But after I finished work on Rick, I finished the session by creating the theme that'll play when Rick goes into his 2D animated thoughts and I've got to say, I think the drum and bass style I ended up going for here has really allowed it to shine (much like what happened with Captain Cartridge's soundtrack and the drum and bass tracks that I created there), Overall it was quite fun to make up this track on the spot, but I think that learning how to actually write music will actually help me out in the long run. Maybe once video games cease to be a viable option for doing full blown projects in college, I can at least continue using Dreams to voice act and create music for whatever future projects happen to crop up in the future.

Asset Production Day 4: A Horse... And That's All I Did.

Ok, today did not go exactly as I expected, as doing certain parts of the horse turned out to be more painful than I'd anticipated originally. But before we get into the more painful bits, let's talk a little bit about how I made the horse. (because the first part was considerably easier by comparison) Originally I wanted to just make it a re-mix of either Ruff Bup or Rick Coon, but then I figured that since the horse had such a radically different shape to our heroes I wouldn't be able to get away with this, so I instead chose to make it a new element instead and use Ruff Bup as a scale of reference since he's the guy that's going to ride the horse in this short. For the most part I used the same process I did when making the other two characters where I adjusted the proportions of the default puppet and then painted the face, the only difference is that since the horse is an animal with hooves and he needs to stand on all fours, he wouldn't have hands by default. Speaking of his hooves, I decided that I wanted to be able to switch out his hooves for hands like they did back in those days (because abiding by the laws of physics is for fools), so I simply copied Ruff Bup's hands and got rid of the black lines that indicated that he was wearing gloves, afterwards I made it so that a keyframe would swap out his hooves for the alternate hands by switching which set is visible. This was probably one of the best parts in my opinion because now I can feasibly go back and do the same thing with a lot of my other characters. (like Super Sheep and friends)

The head of the horse was even easier to make since for the most part it was just the default puppet head which I made bigger and then added black "hair" onto it (the rest of the face was painted on), like Rick and Ruff Bup, I did the ears separately so that I could move them around after doing a little bit of rigging via connecters. Later on, as if life wanted to make up for the cruise through easy street, creating the alternate head model would prove to be a nightmare. for the alternate head (which would get used when Ruff Bup forces the horse to eat the drill), I'd cloned the original head model twice so that I could split the head model into two halves (that way it would seem as if he had a mouth that Ruff Bup could feasibly shove a drill into), the main problem from there was rigging it so that the horses mouth would open without the two pieces separating, but that was just the start of the pain, as the worst of it came when I decided to animate a canned run cycle for the horse to use whenever he's running, but it quickly became apparent that I went right into the deep end without learning how to swim, as animating a quadruped running turned out to be a bigger challenge than I'd thought. It took me a couple of attempts to actually get the cycle finished but even then, it's still quite a bad animation. (and that's by MY standards, so you know we've reached new lows. But at least the sound effect is decent) After I'd already finished the cycle, I decided to put Ruff Bup on the horse's back so that I wouldn't have to do it later, but due to physics bugs I had to tweak the horse's animation just a little but further in order to prevent both characters from looking like they were having a seizure.

I'll be honest, this experience doesn't make me want to animate anymore quadrupeds until I've gotten way, way better at animating in general because it ended up being clear that for as much progress as I've made over the course of my time in college, I've still got a lot to learn before I can call myself a proper animator. (and to think I've only got one day left before the big return to college, so tomorrow I'll have to find a way to accelerate my asset output, and fast)

Asset Production Day 5: Every Other Asset That Isn't Door Sounds

Ladies and Gentlemen, I've officially got every single asset I'm going to need for this project! (well, except the door opening sounds, but I can always create that during the animation process when I get back from college) It's been quite an interesting journey to say the least, there were parts where I was able to get a lot done... and then there was that pesky horse that gave me way more trouble than I thought. But right now it's time to talk about what I created today.

So today I actually managed to do quite a wide variety of things, first I created the key that Rick and Ruff Bup eventually fight over using the sculpt tools where I actually used both positive and negative edits in order to make the key itself look just right. In Dreams PS4/5, "Negative Edits" mean that you cut into the shape you're working on instead of adding more shapes. I've actually used negative edits previously when making things like the eye holes on characters such as Super Sheep and Captain Cartridge and even windows for places such as The Generive, but this time I mainly used them to thin out the model so that it looks more like an actual key instead of a thick monstrosity with a few cones sticking out. While I was doing that, I decided it would be a good idea to use Rick Coon as a scale of reference, that way I would know what size the key should be in relation to Rick's hands because then I wouldn't have to worry about it later while animating the scenes where the key is involved.

Afterwards I did the lock (because even the best keys are useless without a lock), originally I wanted to do it as a separate element, but I changed my mind because I felt it would be easier for me to modify the existing truck asset by adding the lock rather than trying to wing it with the lock on it's own. (plus it was a nice opportunity for me to go back and add an actual mechanism to the back door so that it can open properly) I decided to model the lock in two parts (the hatch being one part and the other part being the main box) because then I wouldn't have to worry about making two separate models. (one where the lock was open and the other where the lock was closed) Doing this was quite easy because I could simply modify the door sculpt to add in a hatch and then have the lock's latch shaped to accommodate it, thus allowing me to have the option to make the lock a physical object if I so wish.

Afterwards I decided to "compose" Rick's regular theme by taking the "Rick's thoughts" track (which I called "Rick's Flight of Fantasy") and then expanding on it ever so slightly by adding a piano because I still never wrote any sheet music and it was easier for me to do it this way in order to maintain a le-motif with Rick's theme and when we go into his thoughts, also I was too lazy to come up with a different melody, but I'm stealing from myself so it's not copyright infringement. (you'll see later on that laziness struck again when I composed Ruff Bup's theme)

Afterwards it was on to do the locations (all two of them), but while I was doing Ruff Bup's neighbourhood I ended up running into more trouble when I placed in the black and white lighting, so despite all my efforts the shadows still ended up being too dark to properly see anything, so I had to go back and modify the black and white grade AGAIN! I did this by mainly brightening up the shadows a little bit and making everything de-saturated (because the cartoon is black and white anyway so the saturation makes no difference), other than that little setback Ruff Bup's neighbourhood was a piece of cake to make, as I only did the area I want the audience to see (meaning there are only two houses in reality and the second house is seemingly empty) and I made everything relatively quickly.

As for "The Open Road", that was even easier to make because it only consists of a flat area with a road that stretches to the middle. The main challenge there came from actually producing two versions of it. (one that would appear as if it's moving and the other would be a stationary version) For the version that moves, I decided to use the same approach I did when attempting the "infinite buildings illusion" back in Super Sheep's music video where I would have emitters spew out the objects that would whizz across the screen to give the illusion of motion. Given how it turned out last time, I'd say this time was a major improvement (in terms of visuals and the frame rate), thanks in no small part to how I had each emitter emit a single object (be it the road or the trees) instead of having a single emitter emit a complicated group of objects. In fact, because of this and the way I'd made the road, I was actually able to get the emitter to emit new pieces of roads in such a way where you can no longer see the individual pieces, thus creating a better version of what I was originally going for with Super Sheep's music video.

Next came the drill. Much like the key, I used Rick as a scale of reference since again, he's the guy that whips this thing out and like with the lock, I also decided to model it in two parts (the main body and the bit that actually drills into the earth because I actually want Rick to use the drill on Ruff Bup) so that I could use key-frames to actually animate the drill being used, that way I wouldn't have to worry about animating it later on.

Afterwards came the one set of assets I thought I wouldn't be able to do until later, that being the voice acting for Rick's laughter and his screaming. The reason I didn't expect to get to do those today was because my Dad was still working from home (yeah, on a Sunday), but then he ended up finishing way sooner than I expected AND I got to continue playing video games because he was off painting, so I used this golden opportunity to do a little bit of acting. Overall, things went smoothly for me, as I only needed to do a single take for each one. But while I was doing it, you may have noticed a few changes from when I did the voice acting for Captain Cartridge and friends. One major change is that the limit of how long recorded audio can be is now dependent on what your dreamer level is (which is that number you see above the name "FLA5H BAND1C00T"), so because I'm at a high level I get to record 30 seconds of audio (which is double that of what I was able to do before), but now there's a limit of how many audio clips I can record during the day. (that being 150 clips, but those there's also a 75 minute cap on how long the total amount of audio you can record is) The reason these changes got made was because Media Molecule (the developers of Dreams PS4/5) actually implemented an audio importer on to the companion website for the game. (which is "InDreams.me") Overall, I like that I can record an extra 15 seconds of audio, but I'm not sure how I feel about the extra limits put in place. (I get that it's probably due to concerns of copyright infringement and potentially even server limits, but it's not a great change to say the least)

But enough about the updated audio tools, as afterwards I got to work composing the chase theme, which has now supplanted "Rick's Flight of Fantasy" as my new favourite track of the bunch due to the intensity and how I was able to have multiple different drum beats transition to one another in a manner that wasn't too jarring. This is actually the thing I spent most of my time doing today, as I had to actually come up with a new melody while also sampling from Rick's theme in order to keep the le-motif throughout the soundtrack. My favourite part was how I actually had the drum beat reflect a little bit of the potential action (where it would go from being a simple jazzy drum beat to also doubling as a horse running sound and then later a drilling sound), I'm actually proud of how it came out in the end due to all the re-jigging I did in order to make it sound just right.

After I finished doing that, I then did Ruff Bup's theme. This is where once again laziness would strike and I simply made it more of a re-mix of a piece of the chase theme, only instead of making it sound grander, I made it sound less intense (as the character is supposed to be going to bed at this point in the short) by swapping out the piano for a glockenspiel, slowing down the tempo of the song and changing the drum beat to be more jazz like again.

For the horse noises, I just searched for a horse sound effect or two off of the Dreamiverse (those sounds were imported by "Domino666" and come from the "LittleBigPlanet" series) and then plonked them into the asset collection. (nothing special there)

Overall, I'm quite proud of how I was able to actually get all this stuff done on time, as I didn't think I'd make it that far by the time I was due to return to college again. But now I can rest easy knowing that I've got more or less everything I need to get this cartoon made. (although I did end up cutting corners quite a bit, especially when doing Ruff Bup's neighbourhood and most of the soundtrack)

We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Another Project Management Update

Well folks, we're back on track. and now that It's been arranged for me to work from home again, animating the actual project should become a much smoother process than it was with the Super Sheep music video where I had to work around the remote learning policies that were in place.

We Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program

Asset Production Day 6: Last Minute Bricks And Sticks

So you're probably wondering why I spent my time at home producing assets instead of actually getting started on the animation process. Well you see, last night it dawned on me that I actually forgot to create the stick and the brick assets that would be used later in the shorts and because I didn't think I'd be going home early today, I never actually put the storyboards onto my phone, so I couldn't start without doing that first, meaning I'll have to start tomorrow. (I know, a little bit of a setback right out of the gate but I can always make up for it throughout the week) Overall, I think I'm going to like working from home again, especially since I was able to complete the last Final Major Project this way, but at the same time, I'm going to miss being able to interact with my friends during all this. (but I can always see them again when I've finished animating so it'll be fine, I suppose)

So for both the stick and the brick, I decided to use Rick and his Truck as both a scale of reference and a space reference (which in these terms, means you're making an asset around how much space another asset gives you), the reason I did this was so that when it came time for Rick to use the stick, it can already be shaped to fit through the steering wheel and the brick won't end up phasing through the truck when I show it on screen briefly. Making both these assets was quite easy for me because for the stick, I simply took two cylinders and stuck them together, and the brick was just a single cuboid with three hole stuck into it. But enough about that, as tomorrow is the day I can finally begin animating this thing for real. And I'm very much looking forward to getting this party started.

The Grand Lamppost Heist Production Day 1: Hitting The Ground Running

Phew, that was one heck of a productive day. (well to be fair, this is a lot simpler to animate than Captain Cartridge because thus far, there's only really one character on the screen at a time) I actually managed to blaze through the introductions of both Ruff Bup and Rick as well as the 2-D bit (which actually took me a while to get to with Captain Cartridge because of how I like to animate cartoons in chronological order), although when I got to the 2D bit, I actually had to spend most of part 2 drawing everything quickly because I didn't think to add the 2D drawings to original my asset list, despite the fact that I'd already done that with Captain Cartridge and it worked out fine, and I didn't want these to be simple stick figures either, so it was quite the time sink which admittedly, could have been avoided entirely with a little bit of extra foresight. but after doing all that and cutting several corners with the drawings of Rick, doing the 2D bit became really easy because all I was doing was moving a bunch of 2D drawings around.

Coming back to the first part, I ended up running into a few problems, the biggest of which related to Rick the lighting being too dark (although that was at least advantageous when we first see Rick, but when he's supposed to see the lamppost, that's when it becomes a problem), so in order to combat this, I experimented with giving Rick a little bit of a glow but I made sure to make it so that it wouldn't emit any external light or else it would look like the characters were glow in the dark action figures. I had a bit of an internal debate as to whether or not I should keep the glow or not and I even tried applying it to Ruff Bup to see how it would look (because the glow made the characters seemed flatter than they were), but in the end I decided to just have Rick glow when he sees the lamppost (which I know might look tacky, but it was the only way I could think to make Rick's face easier to see without moving the sun itself. Another Major challenge I came across was actually getting Rick to jump over the wall because at one point I'd accidently duplicated one of the frames (which as you could imagine, made Rick seem like he was frozen in time for a brief moment), but after a little bit of re-jigging, I was able to get Rick's animation to play out correctly. The problem I ran into (which was more of a minor issue) was that when I first brought out Rick's sack it ended up being too big for Rick to hold (this is why you always use the characters as a scale of reference when producing props), so I had to shrink it down so that it would fit in his hand.

Something good that came out of this was that I managed to improve my transitions from cycled animations to regular animation by simply doing the cycles and then placing them on the timeline that relates to the corresponding character. This might just be the biggest improvement I've ever made to my skills thus far because now, not only can I see what the last frame of the cycle is going to be when I stop the cycling, but now the cycles are guaranteed to end in the same place each and every time (meaning no more having to time everything out manually), but speaking of cycles, I've got to say that I think that Rick has the funniest cycle thus far, particularly the one I made after I transitioned out of his thoughts because sometimes in animation, when a character is sneaking around it can actually be funnier if their pelvis doesn't constantly bob up and down. (which ended up being the case here)

Overall, I'd say I'm currently on track, but don't be surprised if I end up needing to continue animating into next week because typically, these 5 minute productions take me around a week to fully animate, but I began animating on a Tuesday because I didn't have the storyboards on my phone during Monday.

The Grand Lamppost Heist Production Day 2: Tripping And Somehow Sticking The Landing

Ok, so today was quite interesting because there were lots of unexpected twists and turns, one of which actually revolves around me having to go off board multiple times in a row (to go "off board" in this case means I had to deviate from the storyboards, this can refer to things like changing camera angles, character poses, which way a character is facing and even if elements end up getting cut WHILE I'm animating), one such instance involved a scene where Rick is searching for his Drill, as in the storyboards the truck is shown to open with the back hatch touching the floor, but when I remixed the truck asset (because making a new model would have been too time consuming) I instead made the truck open so that the hatch would be in the air like in Toy Story (except not really because in that movie the hatch actually goes upwards not outwards) due to a change I'd made while storyboarding the sequence where Ruff Bup and his horse would have opened the hatch:

A cap from my own stream, look at that.p

I honestly didn't think I would be able to get this entire third sequence done today due to how long it ended up being (just over a minute of animation), but when you're blatantly cutting corners to get this thing done in a flash like I've been doing I guess anything's possible.

One particularly unexpected twist that happened today was that I ended up deciding to axe the horse character out of the story entirely (which I generally wouldn't advise doing at this phase of production because of all the hurdles you'll have to jump later on) due to a bug I ran into while getting it into position, as for some reason, while the bottom half of the horse would show up fine, the top half never actually moved (despite cooperating with me while I was setting the positioning up), so I decided to take a look at the horse asset itself to see what was wrong with it. Turns out it might have had something to do with when grouped Ruff Bup with the back of the horse, as when I went to move the part I grouped Ruff Bup to, I found that I was able to move it freely as if it were a separate object entirely, but since I'd already saved it after the fact, I couldn't really do anything about it, so I decided to axe the horse as a whole. (which I suppose means animating this project should be much simpler, as I don't think I was really ready for the challenges involved with animating a biological quadruped) As a direct result of this, I had found myself in a bit of a pinch, as now I had to come up with something different on the spot, so with no time to even consider any options I had to go with the first thing that popped into my head. (which was having Ruff Bup continue the chase on foot) I didn't want the horse to go unacknowledged however, so in it's place I decided to quickly put together a sign that would explain how a group of my other characters "broke the horses back before production began" which would then annoy Ruff Bup because now the next scene will make less sense than it did before. This bit of meta humour is actually one of my favourite parts thus far (besides the funny walk cycles I gave Ruff Bup and Rick) because it plays a little bit with the idea that these characters know their fictional beings working for a production company and I even got to accidentally give Ruff Bup a reason to dislike his own studio. (which currently doesn't exist in any physical form yet)

One other challenge I ran into was keeping Rick's face visible for the brief moment he held his drill because of how big the drill ended up being. (although saying that, I could have easily shrunk it down to be a little bit smaller, but then it would ruin the continuity later on when the drill needs to be bigger again) Another thing I found out I'm not ready for is actually having characters climbing walls like Spider-Man, as when I had Ruff Bup start to do this, I realised the daunting task ahead of me, so I made it so that instead of climbing the wall, he jumps off it like Mario and lands in his bed. (but the animation is still a little bit janky because I decided to cut that particular corner for when the clean up phase comes)

Overall, while this has turned out to be quite a daunting project under an unconventional set of circumstances, once I get into it, I find animating the project to be quite relaxing for some reason. (probably because of some of the muted background noise going on while I'm wearing headphones due to how my dad likes to listen to music when he's working from home)

The Grand Lamppost Heist Production Day 3: A Race Against The Clock

Today, I did a little bit of animation for the grand chase scene. Needless to say, I think this sequence is going to take at least another day or two for me to complete because it seems to be a bit of a trend that as production goes on it takes longer and longer to fully animate each sequence. (and that's with me constantly cutting corners all the time) One of the biggest challenges was actually figuring out how to do the camera angle for when Rick uses the brick and the stick to keep the truck on a straight path, as the space between the truck's seat and the wall is actually quite tight (probably because I'd originally used this as Hex Moother's truck back in the music video) but luckily I figured that since we'd only see Rick's arm during this part, it would be ok for the rest of him to clip through the truck off camera (because if anything happens to be clipping through anything else but it happens off camera you'll be fine, it's only once it happens on camera that you should worry), so I was able to use this to get that particular shot to be closer to how it was in the storyboard.

At one point, I was getting tired of constantly having to place down extra lighting whenever I couldn't figure out how to make the characters faces easy to see, so I actually decided to try giving them that glow effect I rejected initially (but this time I'd take the time to make sure that said glow didn't generate any external lighting via the various sculpture tweak menus (because everything in dreams has a tweak menu), I ended up liking the effect so much that I decided to go back to the previous sequences and retro-fit the effect on to the characters. (I was even able to use this as an excuse to get rid of the sudden glow that Rick obtains in the beginning as well as all the extra lights throughout, since Rick Coon and Ruff Bup will always stick out from their environment) Part of the reason I like this effect so much is because it not only allows me to see the characters faces no matter what angle the lighting is pointed at, but it also helps to create a further contrast between the characters and the backgrounds. (which is good because then I get to be a little bit more authentic to the old aesthetic due to how flat the characters end up appearing)

Another major challenge was actually animating Rick climbing the truck so that he can get up on the roof because unlike Ruff Bup, I was trying to have Rick climb straight up, so there was no getting out of animating him climbing to the roof via a wall jump, but with the help of a little bit of patience and a little corner cutting (even those two seem like they should contradict each other at the onset), I was able to find a way to get it to look... eeh not the best but it'll get the job done until I reach the clean up phase. I estimate that if I play my cards right, I can get there by around Friday (which is the ideal date because then I won't need to work from home next week), Sunday (which is cutting it close) or Monday (where I'll try and minimise how long I'm working from home for due to other college obligations) because I plan on taking the Saturday off due to it being a relative's birthday party that day. (I won't disclose who because this is being posted on the internet, but if you end up seeing no updates on Saturday, you'll know why) Hopefully I can wrap this process up by Friday and move on to doing a little weekend cleaning before asking for feedback from others and then implement some of it into the project before I release and evaluate it.

But before I go, I think that my new approach to cycles (and the fact that most of this scene will likely be animated via run cycles and the odd fighting cloud here and there) might actually have saved me quite a bit of time, as now I'm no longer having to fiddle around with the timing as much (don't get me wrong, there is still a process of fiddling around involved, but it's not BLIND fiddling anymore) which has allowed me to focus a little more on the parts of the animation that don't involve cycles, and if I play my cards right, this can give all future projects animation that is at least 4% better than Captain Cartridge And Friends in Operation Compact Disc. (because I'm still not at enough of a bench mark where the animation can be considered "good" by professional standards)

The Grand Lamppost Heist Production Day 4: We Didn't Make It

I'm afraid I have some bad news boys (and girls), I didn't finish the entire animation, so it looks like I'll be stuck working from home next week, of course I'll be aiming to get back in by Wednesday but due to the slow rate at which I've been working lately, I can't even guarantee THAT. (so hopefully I'll be able to pick up the slack next week) There is some good news in all this however, as I managed to get up to the part where Ruff Bup eats the drill (because there was supposed to be a horse that did that, but I cut it out due to issues with the rig that likely stem from the fact that I grouped a second Ruff Bup model to the back), which at least means the end is in sight (not that this hasn't been fun), and I do like the way I was able to start animating the quick shaking that would likely occur if someone actually managed to ingest a drill somehow. (the day that happens will likely be when pigs start flying)

The journey to get there however has been a relatively slow one (by my standards anyway), as I had to spend most of it Animating Ruff-Bup rolling around on the ground and finding the drill. This might sound easy on paper, but due to the way I set this location up, it was just a little bit more complex. You see, when I was making the open road set, I decided to create two versions: one where I would create the illusion of an infinite road via emitters while the other version is meant to be more of a stationary version. (meaning all the pieces are still, that way I could do a regular scene there if I wanted) The problem is that since I set them up to be side by side, if the camera is pointed in the right direction, you can actually see the other version in the distance (which is not good for maintaining the illusion of this being a singular location), so while I was animating the part where Ruff Bup is rolling (since you would be able to see the moving version in the background), I decided to try placing a text displayer (which is the same tool I used for the two signs you see during this production) in the background in order to cover it up. You might be thinking that this sounds dumb, but what I would do is that I would put the text displayer down, go into the tweak menu and type in a single space in order to get the text box to stay in the scene permanently, afterwards I would change the box's colour so that it blended in with the dark grey sky as much as humanly possible, thus covering the other version entirely and as a bonus, it even works the other way around, so now I've effectively unlocked the ability to show the moving side from 180 more degrees than I could before. (although for the sake of not breaking the rule of 180, I'm not going to take advantage of the extra degrees in this cartoon) As for how I got Ruff Bup and Rick over to the non-moving version of the set, I had to use a position key-frame to teleport the characters, the truck and the drill while they were off screen (because it would look quite weird if they suddenly disappeared while they were on screen), and then once I'd finished with certain elements, I'd teleport them back to the moving version so that they're ready for when I cut back to the moving version after Ruff Bup experiences a speed boost.

Although saying that, I did decide to look at the gameplay thermometer and found that I was using a whole 30% for the "animations and wires." I know that I could probably do the rest of this scene as a one shot and still be under the maximum limit for the gameplay thermometer, but I don't want to risk reaching the limit while I'm at a point I can't easily cut, so I'm deciding to split this scene into two separate scenes so that I won't have to risk encroaching on the limits while I'm animating the big fight scene at the end.

Like I've stated previously, I plan on taking Saturday off due to family obligations, so don't panic if you don't see any updates tomorrow.

We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Another Project Management Update

Ok, it feels like it's been a while since I've seen this bad boy again (even though I do this every week), but I'm happy to report that despite me decreasing in productivity last week, I've somehow managed to technically be ahead of myself (a bit of a weird conundrum I know but I'm calling shenanigans), so now all I need to do is add a couple of minor elements to the project, edit it all together in share-factory (and by that I mean cutting out a few delays I intentionally left in so that the emitted elements could come on screen before the actual scene starts) and then I'm good to go.

We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program

The Grand Lamppost Heist Production Day 5: The Animation Is Complete, Buuuuuuuut...

Well folks, by some miracle I managed to get the main bulk of the animation done today. (thus making up for the ground I lost on Saturday and Sunday due to it being a relative's birthday weekend) This wasn't without it's challenges however, as during the final stretch, I had trouble trying to figure out how to get Ruff Bup to carry the Lamppost out of the truck while making the transition from the moving version of the scene to the static version of the scene as seamless as possible. On top of that however, it was a bigger challenge figuring out how to show Ruff Bup leaving the truck without having the lamppost passing through everything, so in order to mitigate this, I decided to change the second to last shot entirely so that it shows the truck passing the camera, then afterwards we see Ruff Bup casually walking in the opposite direction with the lamppost in toe. (and thus accidently implying that he has super strength in the process) Speaking of things being different to how they are in the storyboards, a lot of the times where the characters would be climbing on something, I decided to swap the climbing for jumping instead because like I said previously, I don't feel as if I'm ready to animate Spider-Man style wall crawling yet. (because biting off more than I can chew seems to be a theme with me between Captain Cartridge's first go around and the cut climbing animations in this)

Another big issue was that while I was animating during the second part, the game crashed, which is why there were three streams today instead of just two (that'll teach me for... opening doors? I guess. not sure what caused the game to crash to be honest), well... it would have been a big issue if the game didn't come in clutch with that auto save moments before hand, as without it I would have lost the entirety of today's work. (thus meaning I would have to start again, which isn't good)

Moving on to something that was easy, I actually found animating the fight scene to be a rather pleasant experience. But then again, I suppose when half the fight consists of a cartoon fight cloud (which like the other 2D assets, I had to make up on the spot due to covering the characters, it does make things much easier in the end. I also though it would be a good time to use a similar cheat to what I used with Rick's stick getting rammed into the steering wheel where I would only show his arm trying to punch Ruff Bup in the face while having the rest of his body just kind of floating into position off camera. (and then once Ruff Bup kicked Rick in the face, I did the same thing but instead of Rick, it's Ruff Bup) I actually quite like this little trick, as it can net me more space in a particularly cramped environment if I play my cards right.

Other than that, I as able to actually complete the main bulk of the animation. With that being said however, I kind of want to take some time to add in a few minor elements like a title card that tells the audience what cartoon they're watching (and I would have also said the end card, but I did that today instead because I was on a roll) and then once those elements are added I can edit the whole thing in Share-Factory (and by edit, I mean cut out all the little delays and loading times that'll inevitably crop up when I'm recording) and hey presto, I'm ready to gather as much feedback as possible when I get back to college on Wednesday. (and from there I can spend the rest of my time refining the animation until the release date, which I decided would be roughly two weeks from now) I can't wait to see my friends once again after this is over, because now I can simply polish the animation during my days off and my time at home after college like I did with other projects in the past.

The Grand Lamppost Heist Production Day 6: Altering and Editing

Today was actually quite a grab bag of tasks, so I'm going to break them down on an individual basis.

The first thing I did today was create the title card I mentioned about doing yesterday, I decided to make it a re-mix of the "Dinny Done" sequence because I'd already created that before hand and this title card would basically be the same thing but for the beginning of the cartoon rather than the end, the only differences are that it would say "Sl@min@tion Studios Presents [because the game censors the word "Slamination" for some reason]: A Ruff Bup and Rick Coon Cartoon", and then afterward it would mention what the cartoon is actually called. (which in this case is "The Grand Lamppost Heist") The reason I went with this format rather than one that was similar to other 1930s cartoons was because I wanted to have a sense of synergy between this and the Captain Cartridge cartoon I'd made after college was over last year, because if I'm not going to have synergy between my work, it might as well be in ways that don't completely tarnish my creative possibilities, this is also why I decided to make the "Dinny Done Here Folks" theme a template where I could swap the instruments around depending on what I.P. I need to use it in at the moment. (I.E: if it's a Captain Cartridge cartoon, I'd swap out the original instruments I used for SEGA Mega Drive instruments instead) Overall, making this title card was quick and easy due to how half of the job had already been done when I made the "Dinny Done" sequence, which I chose not to animate here because I wanted to keep in line with how actual 1920s cartoons were bookended with still images, although having said that, I doubt it would have been as easy for the old practitioners to move the camera in the animated world as it was for me. Originally I went with showing the characters in the same pose as they were in during the "Dinny Done" sequence and then after a while I'd fade to a black screen that showed text which told the audience what the cartoon in question was called, but as the day rolled on, I ended up coming back to this particular sequence and making a few changes to it.

The first major change I made was giving Rick Coon a different pose where he shows a more confident face, thus making it so that the "Dinny Done" sequence would actually match the character's mental state where in the beginning he's portrayed with all his swagger, but once the ending happens he's just frustrated and wants this part to be over and done with:

The Beginning

The End

Afterwards, I decided to add in the lamppost to the area where it says "The Grand Lamppost Heist" and from there, I also decided to make a still scene where Ruff Bup is chasing Rick for his lamppost back. (think in the vein of the Captain Cartridge cartoon where I also had a still image of Cartridge flying after a disc in space during the intro sequence) Overall, I enjoyed iterating on the idea and just sort of making up the title card as I went along (which is something you couldn't really do as freely in other pieces of software) because sometimes in life, the best things come from a little bit of spontaneity.

After I created the title card, I then worked on the credits sequence (which I should have mentioned that I also wanted to make yesterday), to make the credits sequence, I just strung all the assets I used in the cartoon into a black void and then I used text displayers to denote which asset was which while having a camera that would pan from one item/character to another and even then, most of the time I would simply have multiple characters/objects on screen at once in order to help speed the credits along. while that was happening, I would have text displayers that would be snapped to the screen denoting what type of asset we're on as well as who made whatever asset the camera happens to be focusing on. (which in this case, it was all me, with the exception of the characters hands and the instruments I used to make the music and sound effects) As for the sound effects and music meanwhile, I simply turned the camera away from everything so that I could have text in the middle denoting which song sample is currently playing. (and so that the music and sound effects could serve as the sole focus of their respective sections) If this format seems familiar, it's because I lifted it from my previous Captain Cartridge and Super Sheep cartoons from around this time last year, the reason I came up with this format for that particular project was so that I could show what all the actually assets looked like so that they can go back and find it in the actual cartoon itself. Here, it was quite easy to squeeze everything into the scene because 1. most of the assets weren't very detailed anyway, so getting them in without having to lower the detail was a piece of cake, and 2. there weren't as many assets as there were last time, so I didn't have to worry about the gameplay or graphics thermometers having a big aneurysm over there being too many objects at once. (plus I never bothered making Ruff Bup or Rick playable characters anyway, so I didn't have to worry about them contributing a lot to the gameplay thermometer)

After I did the credits, I decided to actually go through the animation and make little alterations throughout in order to improve the whole thing, I would normally do this part after I got my feedback as part of the cleaning phase, but since I'm not due to come back to college until tomorrow, I figured I could get started on that phase while I was here (so in other words, I was able to do a good chunk of the clean up a little earlier than usual), the main bits of cleaning I did were the climbing animations Rick and Ruff Bup do at different points in the cartoon. For Ruff Bup, he did his climbing when he climbed a wall in his house in order to get to his bed. In that instance, I was able to improve it a little bit by simple adding some extra frames in order to make it look like he used his whole body to climb the wall and jump into bed rather than just sliding up it and jumping off like he did before, which makes this part at least 4 percent more believable. (not that it helps much in this situation due to how much of a novice I still am) For Rick, his climbing animation happens when he leaves his truck and goes onto the roof, in this part it was less a case of the animation not moving in a believable manner and more of the fact that parts of him happen to clip through the truck (particularly near the end), but much like with Ruff Bup, the solution I came to was to add in an extra pose so that Rick's body would clip with the truck a little bit less, which is a marginal improvement I suppose. (the key word being "marginal") After that was finished, it was a matter of adding a little bit more detail to Ruff Bup's neighbourhood by adding a few more houses to the actual area, which I had to do twice because I'd separated the beginning and the Heist into two separate scenes due to having a fantasy sequence jammed between them both. Speaking of the fantasy sequence, I was actually able to add all of Rick's stripes and his tail into all the frames of the animation. it was a little bit slow and in the end I did end up with an inconsistency with the top stripe, but never-the-less I was able to make the 2D Rick a little bit more "on model" with the actual design. I'm thinking most of the clean up phase will revolve around fixing up the atrocious 2D illustrations I made, but I can do that during tomorrow's round of clean up when I get home after I've gotten the feedback from my tutors and friends. (who I finally get to see again after two weeks)

After that, it was just a matter of making the soundscape less empty in certain places and even adding minor details such as Ruff Bup's pee covering a small portion of the lamppost when he pees.

Moving on to the editing phase, I thought it would just be me cutting out the delays I left in the original intentionally for the sole purpose of being cut out at this specific phase, but then I realised that because of the way I'd recorded the footage, the cartoon would actually start quite abruptly, so to combat this I rendered out the finished product after all the delays were fixed up via fades and trimming and then I put the rendered clip back into the Share-Factory (which is an editing software on PS4 that's meant for editing gameplay montages) and then adding a clip just before hand so that I could actually add in a fade transition. I then rendered THAT version out and then put it back in Share-Factory so that I could trim out the extra clip and get the cartoon to start exactly how I wanted it to. Needless to say, it was a bit more of a process than I thought is would be, but on the plus side, I didn't really need to cut out any loading times like I originally thought I would. The reason for this is probably due to how I'd been saving the whole project locally AND privately online. (unlike other projects where I'd save a private copy online and have to endure slightly longer load times as a result of not saving it locally)

Overall, I'd say today was quite eventful due to the wide variety of tasks I did throughout the day, but I can't wait to come back to college and get some of that sweet, sweet feedback.

Gathering Feedback

Ok, so now the time has come for me to gather as much feedback as I can on this project, and as I write this, I've already managed to gather quite a bit of feedback so far. In order for me to remember some of this feedback however, I'll need to make a list using word:

for every bit of feedback I gather will go into this document so that I can cross reference it when I'm at home doing more work on the FMP.

So far the people who've watched it seem to like it but I've actually got some interesting suggestions on what I could improve, as today I found out that Rick's second name is actually a racial slur which I didn't even know until after someone brought it up. (luckily, I didn't have any actual dialogue in there, or else changing his name would be a far more monumental task than it actually is so it's a good thing I'm doing this before releasing it) The only instances where his full name comes up are in the end credits, so once I come up with the alternate name for Rick all I have to do is modify a couple of text dis-players and I'm good to go.

As for the chase scenes, those will be a little bit harder to add to due to the fact that it's two separate scenes (although now that I think of it, the inconsistency in the amount of entities being emitted might actually add to the cartoon rather than taking away from it because now I can imply that some actual progress was made rather than them being in the same place) but other than that all I'd really need to do is add in a few more emitters that emit different objects, so the task itself will be quite easy and I can even model in new objects on the spot like I did with the Super Sheep cartoon I made last year. (because I have the power of Dreams' sculpting tools on my side)

So What's Rick's New Second Name Going To Be?

Ok, since Rick's second name has turned out to be a racial slur (albeit spelt slightly differently), I'm going to need to give him a different surname because if this gets big and enough people get offended by Rick's current second name, I'll end up getting cancelled before I've even left college and gone into business. Two alternate name that was suggested to me was Rac Toon and Rick Toon because they both play on the fact that he's a cartoon character and in the case of the second one, it's only a single letter that would need changing, but to be honest I think I'll come up with something different because I want the name to relate to the fact that he's a raccoon without accidentally offending anyone in the process.

Some Potential alternate names for Rick include: Rick (but there's no second name so that it saves space), Rick Tail-stripe (because he's got a stripy tail and it keeps to the theme of him being a Raccoon), Rick P. Rison (because then it keeps the wordplay I was originally going for for the first time around but instead it's about the fact that he's from prison instead of the fact he's a Raccoon) and Rick Maxicure. (because then I can make a little bit of wordplay with the term "Maximum Security Prison")

So some of my friends asked me how I was getting on and I told them about the alternate surnames, afterwards one of them suggested that I put it to a poll in order to see which alternate name people like the most. So after I created my account with SurveyMonkey and after a little bit of fumbling around and help from a friend, I've put together my first ever survey. Doing this was quite easy, as once I created my account I could get started right away, although I did have issues where after I saved it, I ended up in a little bit of a loop due to the inclusion of the college logo (which is a paid feature as my friend pointed out), but once I removed it, everything was all hunky dory and the survey was good to go.

Thus far, Rick P. Rison seems to be winning in the polls at the moment, but I think I'll wait until I get more responses before I decide on anything definitive for the time being.

While I was analysing the results thus far and showing the teacher, she started questioning why a character would basically be named "Prison", so she suggested that I could call him Rick Rac instead, but to be honest I don't think that name would work well for the character despite the alliteration. (although I should keep that name in mind for a potential fighting move)

I'd say that this is a pretty good set of results to base my conclusion on. (even though not everyone in the class got their vote in)

And The Winner Is...

To be honest I really like all of the names here, but Rick P. Rison ended up being the winner so I've decided that to come to a compromise where all the names would get used in different situations, meaning that the name you'll see in the credits and title card will be "Rick P. Rison" (making that his full real name), but if the characters were ever talking to him they could call him just plain old Rick (because it helps conversations feel more natural), his prison nickname could be "Maxicure" (when he's around his fellow inmates) and he could have the title of "The Tail-Striped Criminal", of course, most of the other names would crop up later once I've developed the characters and their world a little bit more, so for now he's just Rick P. Rison. (unless the term Rison some how turns out to be a racial slur)

FMP Feedback Implementation Day 1: Name Changing And Scene Re-Jigging

Well gang, get Mrs Obama on the phone because we did it, we've stopped racism... In this cartoon, but not in real life though because I'm not an expert. Jokes aside, all I really did today was change Rick's name from "Rick [DATA EXPUNGED]" to "Rick P. Rison", but then after I did this I thought to myself "hey, wouldn't it be better if I called him Rick Rison and then revealed his middle name in the end credits for the sake of a last minute gag?" So I went back and got rid of the "P" everywhere that wasn't the ending credits or the asset name. (because then the reveal of his full name might actually get a chuckle out of people) Needless to say, I'm glad I was able to change Rick's surname because now I can have all of the cheesy wordplay without any of the racism.

Afterwards I decided to re-jig the second chase scene by adding more variety to the objects being emitted, that way I can imply that Rick is actually going somewhere. Speaking of Rick going somewhere, I decided to take the key asset I'd made earlier and used it to add mountains in the background, that way the audience can infer that Rick and/or his crime syndicate lives somewhere in the mountains. (plus I noticed that the pointy bits kind of resemble a series of mountains) You're probably wondering how a small key can make a big mountain, well you see folks, I resized the key and went into sculpt mode so that I could get rid of the circle area and then after I quickly messed with the material properties to get rid of the metallic shine, I animated the new "Mountains" asset so that it moved closer throughout the scene. (even though doing that turned out to be pointless because we only see them about twice in the entire scene) This was after I'd already set up all the other emitted objects, but I figured I'd mention this first because it was my favourite part of the entire day due to how I was able to show that assets in Dreams can easily be modified within the scene to suit your needs in a pinch.

So going back for a moment, in order to add a little bit of variation to the background, I grabbed random assets I'd made for this short such as the lamppost and even Ruff Bup's house (but it's the back of the house so that you can't tell) and I also made a big rounded cube to represent a more generic building. Afterwards I stuck a bunch of movers on all of them, made sure they were set up to go at a similar speed to that of the trees and the road and then I replaced some of the trees with the objects in question. Doing this was a little bit difficult because if I didn't get the speed just right it would look like some of the objects were breaking the laws of reality (and that's a job best left for the characters to do) but even then, it was only the most difficult thing I did today because a lot of the real tricky parts were already taken care of, so really the difficulty is just arbitrary.

FMP Feedback Implementation Day 2: Things Are Getting Minor Now Folks

Much like yesterday, much of the alteration only really happened in a single scene, in this case it was the part where we go into Rick's fantasy because I felt like the crowd of hands was too low quality, plus I've been meaning to touch this part up a little more after I'd finished with Rick's stripes anyway, so I figured I might as well do it now so that I don't have to come back later.

When it came to touching up Rick's boss, it was just a matter of adding in a little bit more details using a smaller line in the face and drawing around the original outline in order to get rid of the part that passed through his arm. This was easy because all I was doing was simply touching up an existing drawing in order to improve on it and make it look cleaner. The crowd of hands on the other hand (pun partially intended) was a little bit trickier to do, as I could never seem to touch up the original drawing in order to make it look any better, so I figured the next logical step would be to redraw the hand entirely so that I could make the new drawing look good on the first go around rather than attempt to salvage the original. This gave me the opportunity to make said hand look more authentic to cartoons of the 1920s by making it a gloved ball with sausages sticking out (much like characters such as Mickey Mouse), this ended up with me having to re-do the position change keyframe which did make doing the hand (which I cloned in order to re-do the crowd effect) a little bit more difficult than Rick's "Boss", but I think doing this made the hands the overall better looking of the two drawings I re-jigged.

Afterwards, I made a minor adjustment to the end card so that Rick's ears now faced slightly downwards. This was easy for me to do because I was only adjusting a single aspect that time. And that's it.

As these adjustments become more and more minor, it gets more and more difficult to reflect on them all to be honest, unlike previously where I had a lot more to reflect on, so much so that I ended up missing out quite a bit in the process.

We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Another Project Management Update

Project Management 12_Guess we're reachi

Ok, this was supposed to be the week I would go ahead and start gathering feedback, but since I've done that last week (which is why I've been going through and updating parts of the animation), I'm not sure what the rest of this week will entail.

We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program

Today was the final full day for me to make any alterations to the cartoon that I may have needed to, so I had to be a little bit more vigilant when it came to elements that needed changing. (although I should put a big asterisk there because it's more than likely that I'll be making further changes once I get home)

The main changes that I made were enabling Ruff Bup's tail wag animation in the beginning when he sees the lamppost, I did this in order to give the character a little bit more life than before. I also decided to change the placement of one of the bones so that it was a little bit more obvious that it was a bone, because some friends joked that it looked like... let's just say a male's nether regions and leave it at that. (although saying that, it was still a bit of good natured banter)

Afterwards, it was mostly just adding a sneaking sound effect for Rick so that the soundscape didn't feel empty when he first gets introduced. I also shortened the end of the heist scene so that there wasn't as much padding going on (since I've more than exceeded the five minute mark I was originally going for)

One interesting issue I came across actually happened as a result of me trying to update Rick and Ruff Bup's models by adding a little bit more white on their legs in order to allow the part of the leg that didn't quite get covered by the cone to blend in better with the rest of their shorts), as when the ending came about, Ruff Bup inextricably started flailing around like a Garry's Mod rag-doll clipping through the floor when I updated the model in that particular scene. it was only by down-dating the model in the scene (I'm sure there's an official name for getting rid of an update but I like the term "down-dating" because it makes more sense to me) and then re-applying the paint in the scene itself that I was able to fix this. (at least that's my theory anyway, as the issue never came up again)

When it came to editing the whole thing, I basically did the same thing I did last time where I split the clips and added transitions between them in order to make the cuts seem more invisible due to the way the clips already fade from black anyway. The main difference this time is that I decided to also add a fade to black at the end so that the video doesn't just stop suddenly. When I did this however, it turned out that the end clip's audio started way earlier than I originally thought, so after I'd already rendered the whole thing out I had to go back and mute the trimmable section (because the idea is that I would trim out the "Share-Factory" stinger clips in order to keep the fades, that way the cartoon would start and end on a black screen), afterwards I put the rendered clip back in, trimmed out the stinger clips and then re-re-rendered it again.

Overall, doing this was rather easy because like last time, most of the changes were minor (adding a sound, fixing a patch in the characters legs, replacing one of the trees being emitted with a lamppost, re-editing it all together, ext.), overall I can't wait to see what people think of this current version.

A Little Bit More Feedback

So I've decided to ask for a little bit of feedback to see what people thought of the new version. So far people seem to like the new version quite a bit but I still feel there's one major improvement that I could make overall. The main improvement I wish to make is that I would fix up Rick's window jump due to how it doesn't quite happen as smoothly as I would like it to, so when I get home (because video games) I'll have to go back and tinker with it until it finally plays out nice and smoothly.

And now I just wait until more people give their feedback until I get home and can actually get started once again so in other words, I'm back to making up things on the spot until I can do more actual work because the College still haven't got any PS4s or PS5s yet. (reminds me a lot of how I'd do things before this project to be honest, but hey that's video games for you)

How Did I End Up In This Situation?

So in 2019, when I first started Creative Media Level 2, I was a fairly OK student, I set up a website and all that and things were chugging along quite normally. While that was happening, the game Dreams for the PS4, rwhich I've known about since it was officially announced during 2015's E3 expo (which used to be the premire place where game developers would announce their upcoming titles), was well into its early access stage. Why am I mentioning this in relation to my creative media course? well during the month of October in 2019 (about one month after I'd started), I decided to go ahead and get the early access while it was still available for purchase. (which is good because there were only a few months left at that time, but I didn't really realise at the time how big of an impact this decision would have on my time here)

Once the animation unit got started, I was really excited because I felt like this would be the main thing I ended up doing well at, so after I did all the necessary research, I got to work developing what would become Captain Cartridge in The Rubbish Skinubish, which would have been about a space crew consisting of the likes of Captain Cartridge, Randimeer B. Process, Bitris 16 and even Voltrix (Voltrix was created before all the other characters because he was originally created for a board game I made called "Lights!"), as they clean up a piece of space rubbish which is located in sector 32 in the pixel quadrant above planet X.

It would have been a 2D animated short but because I didn't feel like I was good enough at backgrounds, I decided that I would use Dreams Early Access to make the backgrounds instead. Things were going really well for me, as I managed to get the script and a good chunk of the storyboards done, but eventually tragedy would strike after I found out that it would take me way too long to achieve what I wanted to pull off (this was thanks to a combination of friends, tutors and a little bit of my own research), so I had to make the difficult decision to scale the whole production back, cutting out everything that isn't Captain Cartridge or the rubbish. This ended up being the only reason I was even able to get all of this done on time. (I was animating using Pixlr rather than Flash or Toon Boom because I figured it would be easier to animate with tools I could use at home and in College) To make a long story short, Captain Cartridge didn't have a very good debut in my opinion due to how much I had to cut back just to get everything finished on time:

Afterwards, I would continue on the course by making live action things and even doing a website where I would use Dreams Early Access for the final time because once the final major project came around, the full game would come out. (For most it came out on Valentines Day but for people like me who had the early access version, it came out just a few days earlier) At the same time however, COVID-19 started to really take hold of the world (thus making Sonic The Hedgehog the last film I would get to see in cinemas, possibly forever if cinemas keep taking these massive hits), thus forcing politicians to put the world into lock-down for the first time. Eventually, this would lead to the final major project getting effectively cancelled until next year. Unless you were me, in which case this lock-down became an opportunity to really show off what Dreams PS4 could do, thus facilitating me finally being able to bring my long time creation to life, a blue cartoon sheep known as Super Sheep (albeit, not in the way I thought I would) in a short called "Super Sheep in Convention F-3". (which I edited down via Share-Factory, which is an editing software made for PS4):

This ended up being a way better project overall (even if the animation isn't quite as good as it could have been) because I got the chance to properly try out CGI for the first time. (even though you could technically call this short a Machinima animation and it would make way more sense) it ended up netting me a Distinction for the entire course that year. (and not a Distinction Star like my parents thought it was due to an asterisk that appeared next to the Distinction on a rough certificate that was sent out via post) Afterwards I would go on to use Dreams again to do a re-make of the original Captain Cartridge short where I would re-use the same script that I'd written for the original before throwing everything out (although looking back I probably could have re-jigged the "Big Screen" joke due to current circumstances), thus meaning I finally had an excuse to bring back Sur-Vey, Randi and the whole gang for Captain Cartridge's REAL debut:

I'd say this project is one of my absolute favourites so far because of how I was able to finally realise the original vision of what I was trying to pull off during the animation unit. (plus I got to make my first original soundtrack that was composed by me, which would carry over to this new FMP) Although to be fair, the original Captain Cartridge didn't really set the bar too high, so even a minor improvement in length would have been enough for the remake to be better than the original.

This year, I've basically been doing animations made in Dreams PS4 for the entire year (which I never thought would even be possible until after the fact), from the tension builder to the final major project I'm doing right now. (so in other words, I've pulled off every gamer's fantasy and succeeded in my college work by playing video games all day, thus proving all the parents of the world wrong) The main drawback to using video games however is that since the college doesn't have PS4's or PS5's, I can't do anything while I'm there. (which is why I'm doing this part in the first place, to stall for time)

To be honest, when it comes to my success, I do like that I was able to use video games to do this, but I get the shaking suspicion that playing the game is basically the only reason I'm even able to get any of my work done on time at all due to how easily I'm able to do animations with it (since the buttons are all the same ones I've been using since the PlayStation 2 era), which might become a bit more of a detriment as time goes on and the world goes back to normal thanks to the vaccine, and even then, I can't guarantee that the TV will be free when I get back, so who knows if I'll even be able to do anything tonight (yeah, this basically makes me more of a glass cannon because while I'm able to animate things rather quickly to an uuuuh... acceptable standards, any disturbance to what I'm doing at home could become detrimental in the long run), and that's how I ended up in this situation where I can't do any feedback implementation until tonight. (if the TV is free, I still didn't think to get the remote play app and I want as little latency as possible when actually making any further changes because I'm still playing video games at the end of the day) Sometimes I wonder what things would be like if I didn't think to get the early access for Dreams when I did because doing this has really led to a big chain reaction of inexplicable success that likely wouldn't be the case if I had to use more conventional means to make the projects. (especially this year, which to me begs the question of where I'm going to go once the world goes back to normal and video games are just games again)

To Make A Long Story Short...

I was about to get started after I'd had my dinner, but then as I was about to do this, my Dad and brother ended up wanting to use the TV to watch the football (if I remember correctly), so sadly I couldn't do anything on my project. Although because of the way I like to work, I probably wouldn't have had anything to reflect on today due to how I would have done all that last night after I'd finished streaming.

I suppose I could use today to at least reflect more on the advantages and disadvantages of using Dreams PS4. (because one of the disadvantages is the main reason I'm even in this situation in the first place and I'm currently waiting for one of my tutors to give a little bit of feedback)

So What Are The Advantages Of Dreams PS4/5?

Well one of the main reasons I even use Dreams in the first place is because it's a lot easier for me to make things in it than it would be in a program like blender where I'd need at least a few months just to make one character model (unlike in Dreams where I can make multiple character models over the span of a few days because I don't have to worry about polygons), this process can allow me to focus a little bit more on the aesthetics of a particular character without worrying about the polygon counts, and since these are 3-D models I can also use those character models over and over again while slowly making a few iterations as seen with Super Sheep and friends. The main iteration I made with Ol' Supes was changing his mouth so that it appears on the side like a Sonic The Hedgehog Character.

Another reason I really like the game is because it's really easy for me to evidence my work by streaming the entire animation process because it's a PlayStation 4 game (and PlayStation 4s allow you to stream gameplay to YouTube), and the best part is that by the time I'm finished streaming I don't actually have to transfer the footage onto a pen drive because it's already on YouTube. (since I'm streaming there directly) I discovered this benefit while I was making Super Sheep in Convention F-3, my final major project which would have been cancelled last year if I used more conventional software such as Toon Boom or Flash, because before that faithful first stream I originally had to evidence everything via gameplay recording, which stunk because I was only able to record an hour of footage at a time before parts of the video would stop existing. (which actively made me less productive than I ended up becoming when I switched to streaming during day two of my FMP last year) From what I can gather about streaming on a PS4, I seem to be able to stream for as long as I want with the longest I've streamed thus far being 5 hours when animating this project:

One major benefit of using Dreams is that I can re-jig any asset I make (or even find) in order to fit the needs of the current project. For example, when I made the City Escape Music Video I created a truck asset for Hex Moother to chase Super Sheep with. In this project, I took that very same truck, added a trailer to the back and made the main truck black and white in order to fit in with the art-style I'm going for in this cartoon and I was good to go. The best part is that because I made the black and white truck a remix of the original, any changes I made wouldn't impact the original in any way. (due to how the game will make a new copy of the asset for you to edit, thus meaning the original gets to stay intact) This can be helpful if you create an asset for one project and end up needing a similar prop for another project later on down the line. (and now I'm realising that I accidentally did a George Lucas and had a metaphorical poem going on between projects because in City Escaping With Super Sheep, The hero was the one getting chased by the bad guy in a truck, where as with this project, The hero is now the one chasing the bad guy on foot)

Another big benefit is that if I end up needing an asset while animating, I can make it within the current scene with either the paint tools (for 2D drawings), the sculpt tools (for 3D models of objects) or even the sound tools (for making new music and sound effects) in order to quickly make those assets quickly, although I wouldn't recommend doing this very often.

So What Are The Disadvantages Of Dreams PS4/5?

One of the main disadvantages with using Dreams PS4/5 (as you've no doubt seen with this production of this cartoon since it's the reason I'm even in this situation in the first place) is that because it's a video game and the college still haven't bought PS4s or PS5s, I'm only able to use the game at my house (which is why I ended up having to take some time working from home in order to actually do the animation), this wouldn't be an issue if my PS4 was capable of becoming portable like the Nintendo Switch (I know about the remote play app, but I don't know if it has enough range to make it all the way to college from my house), but since it's not, I can't use it in college.

The next big disadvantage of working with Dreams (which this time is inherent to the software) is actually having to deal with the thermometer limits. Don't get me wrong, I can see why they're there since this is a video game made for the PlayStation 4 after all (the limits are there to make sure that creations aren't too much for the system to handle, but there are work arounds for the graphics thermometer at least), but it can be quite debilitating if you're not careful (also animations have their own subsection of the gameplay thermometer, so the more keyframes I have in a scene, the more it'll take up the gameplay thermometer due to invisible wires), hopefully the inevitable PS5 version of Dreams is able to upgrade all the thermometers so that I can do more in a single scene (but then again, it does make a fun balancing act where I balance out graphical detail in order to optimise the animation), but I don't want to pressure the folks at Media Molecule because they've already make a wonderful set of tools here.

FMP Feedback Implementation Day 4: Sweet Biscuits I Fixed The Jump

Well folks, I've done it. I actually got to do things today (meaning my reflection on the disadvantages of Dreams PS4/5 will have been done after the fact), and I'm quite glad I did because I was finally able to get Rick's wall jump to play out nice and smoothly after tweaking the distance between keyframes (but as it turned out, I just needed to make the frames themselves slightly smaller, but messing with the distance helped to make it a bit cleaner), this is a massive sigh of relief because I didn't want to have to release the cartoon without the animation suddenly turning into what you'd see in the layout phase of an actual computer generated film. (which is the phase where the animation team are simply laying out where all the characters are within a shot without having to worry about animating the characters out side of the bare basics yet)

That was the main thing I did today, but I also decided to add in multiple sets of arms punching each other in order to give the fight cloud a little bit more life because the way it was originally was rather static, and lord knows these old cartoons are anything but static. (unlike a certain set of cartoons by Seth McFarland) I'll probably have to decide whether or not I really want to keep them though (luckily getting rid of them is as easy as deleting the arms, and I've got a few days before I have to decide for certain whether they'll stay in the final version)

FMP Feedback Implementation Day 5: We Fixed The Flailing In The End

Holy cow! I've actually gone and fixed one of the biggest problems that was plaguing this short (besides the accidently racist surname that almost made it into the release version), what was the problem in question? well you see, during the last two shots where Ruff Bup was carrying his lamppost back home, his right arm would randomly start flailing around like a ragdoll in Garry's Mod who's arm got stuck inside a wall (I know I've already made this analogy elsewhere but it seemed quite fitting to the situation at hand), so with that being said, today mainly ended up being me figuring out how to fix this issue.

At one point, I thought that turning off the collision of the truck trailer would fix this and after I saw that the flailing had stopped, I got to work recording the entire short until his arm started randomly flailing again (because of course it did), meaning that something else must have been causing this issue the whole time, so I tried everything from changing the density of all the parts on Ruff Bup to deleting all the unused items in his hands (because it's not like they were ever needed again) and nothing seemed to do the trick (if anything, it would seem as if I'd only made things WORSE) until I decided to try getting rid of the physics on all the parts of the character, and much to my surprise it actually worked. I was even able to get it to work while the lamppost was attached to his hand, thus allowing me to actually make the final shots slightly funnier now that I think about it. (because now even the lamppost has a slight bounce to it)

Overall I'm quite glad I was able to fix this problem in the end because it's been bugging me for ages (the reason I didn't do anything until now was because I assumed that it was unfixable), but now I'm ready to create the release version of this short meaning I'll finally be finished with this project. (after the big evaluation of course)

A Little Bit of Last Minute Editing

Today I edited together the version of The Grand Lamppost Heist that'll go out to the public. That is all.

This task was actually quite a breeze for me to do this time, although considering that I've already made these same edits twice now, so of course it's going to get easier as I do it more.

I can't wait to finally release the full FMP to the world, which I plan to do tomorrow so that I can have as much time as possible to work on the evaluation section.

Release Day

Originally, I wanted to release the cartoon this week, but due to technical complications that occurred while trying to send the video to myself, I decided to release it yesterday instead. (I'll also be adding the cartoon to the home page of this website):

I'm quite glad I managed to finally get this cartoon finished because now I can spend the next two weeks working on the evaluation section, where I'll be assessing what went well and what went wrong over the course of the entire project. Here's a button to take you there:

Next Page (Evaluation)