Outback Adventure - The Great Emu Chase

Since submitting my thesis, including my animation a few weeks ago, I have edited my animation a little. Nothing major. Mostly the sound, cleaning it up and making sure it's not too loud, and re-added the temple vein to the emu's head in the flaming scene. I didn't realise it was missing. I must have hidden it while I was cleaning the emu up and forgotten to unhide it. But yeah, fixed those things in preparation for sending it to the Melbourne International Animation Festival :)

Outback Adventures Cover Design

As well as a DVD disc design, I also designed a DVD cover, around about the 23rd of November.
I used a number of DVD covers as references to try to make it look professional. To include a rating and the other details listed on the back. It only took about a day to put together.

Outback Adventures Disc Design

Yay a disc design, I made sure to include both main characters, I just used the image from the intro credits, since that way I had both characters and they could be far enough apart that they fit next to the hole. The ground, as an impression of their location.
And the title of the series also taken from the intro title sequence.

Animatic 41

I have recorded and added some outdoors ambiance, birds chirping in the background. I recorded a sound effect of the rustling of the bag in the background while the caterpillar is crawling. I increased volume of the dialogue, lowered the volume of the music a little so it could be heard. Also removed an unwanted shadow from the emu chick running with the bag.

Names

Yesterday my brother pointed out that my characters don't have last names. So I've looked up English surnames and we sorted through and eventually decided on their last names.

Louella (their grandmother), Robyn (the mother), and Arinya's surname is Moore. Then Robyn marries Stephen Taylor and so Robyn and Benji's surnames become Taylor.

Louella Moore
Arinya Moore
Robyn Moore/Robyn Taylor
Stephen Taylor
Benji (Banjora) Taylor

Jayden became Stephen, because Jayden is a modren name so it isn't likely that the name was around at the time he was born.

So surnames are worked out, I just have to continue with working out dates and planning out the series.

Animatic 40

Today I put my characters in my animation, and then decided that it would be best to animate a walk cycle, so I did that. I animated both the boy and girl walking. I then put them in. I found that having them walk across and off the screen to be too distracting, so it was better to have them move very slowly part way across the screen, and slowly fade out to disappear before the full title "Outback Adventure" appears.

I considered switching the walk from them with all their gear from the start of the series, to them as they are at the start of this episode...but it didn't work. Because of the items they are holding - the wagon and the map, I couldn't use the same walk cycle...and changing the cycle looked strange, so I scrapped it. It works fine as it is, apart from potentially causing some confusion to those who might not know it's part of a series who would see that the characters do not have the same stuff as they do in the title sequence. I don't consider it to be a big issue though.

Boy with gear walk cycle:


Girl with gear walk cycle:


Boy without gear walk cycle:


Girl without gear walk cycle:

Chibi kids for start

One thing I've been thinking of doing, is adding chibi images of the main characters in the opening titles, when the text is drawing, so that there is something interesting to look at while the text is drawing. The picture would be of the children with all their gear as they would have looked at the start of their journey...it would either be a still image or an animation of them walking on or across the screen. And may or may not show them with their full gear fading into them in their current state at the start of the animation.
Something that would have been an interesting intro to each episode would be to show mini animations of how they lose each item to the current point of the series. It would be kind of like those clips at the start of an episode that refreshes the viewer what has happened in the last few episodes.

Yesterday I drew sketches of the two states, and scanned. Then yesterday I started converting a chibi run cycle to this new image. I started with the boy, adding a jacket, shoes, and his wagon with the contents. Today I added the bag and experimented with the colour of the boy's jacket. I think I'll go with a shade of red. I also completely finished the girl today.

Sketch:


Chibi boy with red jacket:


Chibi boy with blue jacket:


Chibi boy with green jacket:


Chibi kids together:

Animatic 39

Today I recorded and added a few more sound effects, emu chick footsteps (a bead necklace), pecking (thuds), emu's beak snapping shut after missing boy's foot (earring case snapping shut combined with a clap). I extended the music at the start and slightly altered the timing of the music going into and out of the cave.

I also cleaned up a few more scenes, some random pixel row along the bottom of some of the backgrounds (both Uluru, cave and jump backgrounds). I also changed the colour of the two drawing scene backgrounds so that they are actually closer to the colour of the ground rather than being too orange and standing out as different.

Had to clean up the legs and arms of the boy putting food in his mouth.

I also looked at my back story and tried to work out dates for when everything happens, to work out proper ages and even birthdays of the characters, since it's possible that one of the characters might have a birthday during the series, and I have to make sure all the dates add up.

I tried to get my brother to do Benji's voice, but it kept coming out too deep or throaty, so I ended up doing another recording myself.

I also added two frames of the close up of the girl where I moved her arm a little bit, so it looks like she is drawing, rather than just being a still image.

Background: Drawing 1:


Background: Drawing 2:

Animatic 38

Edited the caterpillar to give more detail, shine, thicker shadow, etc.
I also edited the music at the end, still need to fix up that at the start. I extended the chase over Uluru scenes, pushing my length up to 2 minutes. I also added the drawing on the ground in scene 10.

Detailed caterpillar crawl:

Animatic 37

Today I added the emu chick to the scene where the boy is in the tree, I found that the chick ends up not near where it is in the following close-up, however the size of the bag and chick is inaccurate in the first scene due to it being a chibi, it may be more accurate if it were proper, I may decide to change the background for the close-up scene later.

I drew and animated a caterpillar climbing up a branch in the tree, and added the scene in between the girl being shocked the the bag being lowered with the chick inside, and then another scene after that, of a sun against a mostly pink and white sky that fades in and out of the previous and next scenes. I'll still work on the timing. I now have 1 second to work with.

To animate the caterpillar I used a reference video and drew 8 main frames of the animation as nothing more than a thick green line, used the puppet warp tool to get the different shapes. Then after I was happy with it I added in the extra details (like eyes, and feet).

Basic caterpillar animation:

Animatic 36

Today and yesterday I edited the minor details that I noitised when watching the video of my animation last time. It was mostly cleaning up frames where the colour was going out of the lines. I also had to change the arms in the chibi side run cycle, so that they wouldn't swap when the kids run in the opposite direction. And added the bag and emu chick to the chibi front run away scene (26).
The only thing I have to do now is put the bag and emu chick in one of the scenes where the children are in the tree with the emu below them.
Other than that I've considered adding a scene between the girl shocked and the lowering of the emu in the bag, of a caterpillar crawling along a branch. This would break it up, show time passing and extra detail about the area as the children help the emu chick, putting it in the bag off screen.

Animatic 35

Today I edited the backgrounds of 3 scene, the 3 following the inside the cave scene (scene 30). I made the sky a sunset colour, and altered the hue of the sky to be sunset-type colours, this is to show the time that's passed and to avoid going from blue sky in scene 33 to multicoloured sky in scene 34.
In order to make the rock in scenes 28 and 32 look like Uluru, I drew thin trunks on the trees (which previously looked more like grass) and made the characters running over it smaller.

Background 31 with sunset sky:


Background 32 with sunset sky:


Background 33 with sunset sky:

Animatic 34

I have extended my animation. It has gone from 1 minutes and 30 seconds to almost 1 minute 50 seconds.

I animated shines in the emu's eyes to make it look more sad, and extended the scene as necessary.
I animated the title sequence, so that the characters's names draw onto the scene, rather than fade in, this is what took the longest. It also required lengthening of the title scene and scene 1. I also made mini compositions for each of the words being drawn and of different title elements that had significant animation.
I lengthened the credits as well, which wasn't difficult.
I edited the boy jumping side scene to have a trail of transparent images following his jump.The scene of the girl reaching out was also extended by a few frames, and the two focused on drawing scenes.

I also did some sound work. I had to lengthen the start music as it ended up too short after the first scenes had been extended. I edited more of my dog's whines to make the squawks of the adult emu...I also had to lengthen and edit the end music, and edited the boy's voice slightly to be louder and played around with the pitch. I also moved the audio lines so they weren't as close together.

Animatic 33

Recently been working on adding sound effects. I made a few other minor changes: removed some colour that was out of line, slight credits adjustment. I edited the recordings I already had, made sure to remove the static and make them loud enough to be heard. The dialogue is temporary and may or may not stay at all. Depends on if it's needed.
There is dialogue around the drawing scenes, the children gasp, a slight whimper when close up of the boy on the ground, heavy breathing and gasps in the cave, the emu chick cries (which is an edited and combined version of one of my dogs whining). I also edited the ending music, speeding it up when I want it to sound more happy.

Animatic 32

I have broken up the background of scene 1 to create a better panorama effect. It worked quite well.
I have also added some temporary beginning and ending credits. I'm still playing around with the style of the titles. My animation is now at 1min30sec including the credits.

Animatic 31

The past couple of days I've just been making minor changes to my animation, mostly adding/making the shadows on the characters more prominent. I did this in in the first and last scenes, though not the chase scene. Before that I added a shadow to the silhoette scene, since they are directly in front of the sun...I just copying a version of the siloette animation, flipped it and made it transparent.

After showing my animation to someone I was given the suggestions to break up the first scene more to get a better panorama effect, and to record some silence.

Animatic 30

And now my animation has sound. I spent most of today listening to and editing the music aquired from my brother. Some of the music I couldn't use because it didn't suit the theme of my animation. However most of it I was able to, and I only had to make small changes like cropping sections or copying parts in order to make the music run for long enough. For the first piece of music I also lowered the tempo, so it played slower and well as making it longer.

For the emu's feet landing I cut and copied a loud guitair part from the end of the music piece and put it at the start to abruptly interupt the animation as the emu enters, and I reused that sound in a later scene when the emu is charging.

As well as adding sound, I also increased the length (and slowed down) the first two scenes, and lengthened the scene with the boy drawing - adding a few frames to the animation.

Next I worked on the girl crying out, one of the first images I added to my animation. I edited her face for more of a side view, and then did a few frames of animation - mostly just moving the hair and arm.

Girl crying out:


Animation with music:

Animatic 29

Today I finished replacing the last of the storyboard images in my animatic. The boy's side jump.

Following this I edited some of the extra bits, including the temple vein, sweat drop and sprays, mostly in the run cycles but also in scene 26. I used reference images to check on the colours and way the shadow and shine work in the sweat drop.

Then I edited the timing of scene 22 to make it slower, as it was too fast. I increased the time it took for the camera to move up the emu, and then made the cut images slightly longer and further apart. I also extended scene 2 a little, as I felt it was too short.

I finished the day by animating the boy's hand moving a little as he draws in the dust.

Temple vein:


Sweat drop:


Spray:


Boy's side jump:

Animatic 28

Today I edited my animation a bit to fix up a few bits I didn't yesterday, where a character disappeared or a scene ended before the next one began. I also replaced the storyboard images in another three scenes.

I did the boy on his hands and knees reaching for the stick, and then drawing. And the boy's face as he's eating the food. I didn't really animate much, still just trying to replace the storyboard images to get it done. But now I only have one more scene, the side view of the boy jumping. :)

Boy reaching for stick:


Boy drawing:


Boy eating:

Animatic 27

Today I worked on the only scene left that was missing an emu. I did the front angled emu chibi run cycle and the front boy's walk cycle, in the same way as I did the side runs previously. I also tried animating the background because it didn't look right being static.

Then I started working on the front view of the boy jumping.

Chibi emu front run:


Chibi boy front run:


Boy jump front:

Animatic 26

Today I animated a very simple (3 frame) climb cycle for the boy climbing up the tree - most of the work was in moving the cycle up the tree appropriately to the movement. And I also animated the full body emu standing under the tree in one of the following scenes. Lastly I drew the boy lying on the ground, with both the happy and sad face. Now that these things have been added, every scene after scene 26 no longer have any storyboard images present. I only have 6 more scenes to replace storyboard images in, before I go back to scenes to add extra details/movement.

Boy climbing tree cycle:


Emu standing under tree:


Boy laying on ground:

Animatic 25

Yesterday afternoon/last night I continued to work on my emu animation. I edited the emu snapping animation, added a transparent copy of the animation to the scene running slightly slower to give a kind of blur effect. I also edited the face so that it's eyes are closed while it's opening and closing it's mouth, for the two frames before the sad face I made the eyes look as though they're slightly opening, and edited the head of the one directly before, to soften the transition to the sad face.

I also added the boy in the tree, in the scene where the emu is standing under it.

Then I added the boy's foot to the previous scene, and animated it. Then I animated the emu going towards the foot to bite it and just missing. I tried to make the head going towards the foot in slow motion and speed up as the beak closes and he narrowly escapes. It moving slow didn't give off the right feel, so I tried adding some transparent copies behind it. But I'm not sure that I've achieved the look I'm going for.

Edited emu snapping:


Boy in tree:


Kids trapped in tree scene:



Emu biting at boy's foot:

Animatic 24

Today I worked added to the petting emu scene. I added the bag with the emu chick in it around the emu's neck. Then I posed the boy to hide behind the tree.

Next I drew and animated the snapping emu head. I had to enlarge the picture of the emu head so I had to clean up the linework. Then I took all the different poses and animated it, and then smoothed it and gave it the sad face. I plan to roughen up the snacking, as it looks too neat. I'll use some ghosting to give the illusion of speed and wildness.

Emu with chick:


Boy hiding behind tree (without the tree):


Petting emu scene:


Emu head snapping:


Animatic:

Animatic 23

Today I added some more images to my animatic. I animated the girl climbing into the tree. I drew the girl sitting on the branch, and later refined it to make it less blurry and dark-lined. It stood out too much from the background, so I made the file bigger, fixed the lines and shrunk it back down to the required scale.

I also added her to the emu petting scene. I also added the emu later. Before that I worked on the emu standing under the tree, and the emu's legs stepping onto the screen while the boy is lying on the ground.

Girl swinging up branch:


Girl sitting on branch in tree:


Girl petting emu:


Emu standing under tree pose:


Close up of emu:


Emu being petted:


Animatic:

Animatic 22

I have been working on adding the girl into as many of the remaining scenes as I can.
Yesterday I added her to the scene where she is giving the boy a stick, and also the back of her head in the running towards tree scene.
Today I added her back to the chibi run away scene, scene 26. I also drew a picture for her hanging onto the tree's branch.

Girl giving boy stick pose:


Back of girl's head:


Back of girl:


Girl hanging onto tree branch:


Animatic: