The Lost Book

Episode 6 - animation rough

Written by Helen Jackson.

The animation rough for episode 6 is finished and handed over to sound designer Stephen and composer Alexis. Three cheers!

The rough still has our scratch track for the voices - we don't record Cora and Sean until Sunday. The timings of all the action are finalised - although, we do still have quite a lot of finishing off to do: all the 2D graphics/animation (pub sign, newspapers/magazines, text message), the character movement in the Sheep Heid Inn and some of the smaller movements in the cleaning/dominoes shot and the Watson laser beams shot.

By the way, we're using the Aileen character model for Aileen's mum at the moment. The fully-rendered version will be an older version of Aileen, with grey hair and different clothes.

Aileen learns kung fu

Written by Helen Jackson.

I grabbed the "Aileen training to be in Invisible Inc." shot, because I knew it would be entertaining to work on. I used the mostly-but-not-entirely spurious justification that I am Binary Fable's martial arts expert.

(Judo classes. Aged five.)

Then I spent a lot of time on YouTube. I've said it before and I'll say it again, YouTube is a brilliant source of reference video, particularly for anything that would be too exhausting to act out myself. Here are a few screen captures from the resulting routine:

(It was great fun to animate!)

Episode 6 - animatic

Written by Helen Jackson.

We've got a draft script, a set of storyboards, and an animatic so you can start to see how episode 6 will work.

First up, congratulations (and thanks!) to the people whose story ideas made it into the episode: Meg, for Kyle and Aileen’s date and for Aileen’s article; IndiaJones and Lulu for Watson’s evidence-gathering; Bookaddictus for Beryl’s arrest; Tom for Aileen joining Invisible Inc.; and Headlong for Aileen’s Mum getting released.

The animatic is very rough: storyboard sketches put together with a scratch track (a recording of the script as read by Adam and me). What it does for us is allows us to plan the timings of each sequence. This is a much slower episode than episode 5: although a lot of stories are included, they're being recollected calmly. It takes the pace down from the frenetic activity of the rescue scene, so that we're ready to leave the characters at the end.

We're still discussing which library Otto is working in and what Professor Remi is doing (we snuck her story in on a magazine cover!) so there are some details that need to be finalised.

In the meantime, we're working on the animation. We need to have all the animation finished by Wednesday morning so that we can hand a "rough" over to composer Alexis Bennett. It's a pleasure to welcome Alexis back to the project - he wrote the music for episode 1 way back in January.

Three cheers for YouTube

Written by Helen Jackson.

Hooray for YouTube, source of reference video!

I've always been very dubious about leisure activities that can't be done while eating cake. Reading, watching films, drinking coffee - yes. Abseiling - definitely no.

So, when it came to animating Lyn's abseiling sequence, the traditional animator's approach of studying "reference video" of myself performing the actions required didn't appeal. At all.

Three cheers to all the people who selflessly risked their lives to abseil down things while being filmed by someone with a YouTube account - I'd never have been able to animate this shot without you!

Episode 5 - animation rough

Written by Helen Jackson.

We've finished the animation rough! Hurrah! That means composer Michael Ferguson and sound designer Stephen Gilmour can get started, as the timings of all the action have been finalised. It's Michael's second episode - he also wrote the music for episode 3.

Confession time, though. The animation isn't quite as finished as we'd like it to be. The stuff that's missing won't affect the sound design or music, but there's a fair amount we need to finish off. Aileen and Professor Remi aren't animated yet - but as they're tied up, they're not going to be moving much. Also, we haven't yet animated various ropes (this episode is all about ropes - abseiling down ropes, swinging on ropes, being tied up with ropes) and there's breaking glass still to go.

It might amuse you to know that the hardest thing in the episode isn't the point where Lyn comes crashing through the window (although it's going to take a while to get the breaking glass right). No, the hardest bit was making Lyn and Otto hug. CGI characters don't have any physicality, so it's hard to make them touch - if you're not very careful they end up merging into one another. A hug where one person reaches in to touch the other's kidneys is not good! Back to animation. I have a rope to tame...

Episode 5 - animatic

Written by Helen Jackson.

We've finished the storyboard sketches for episode 5 and put them together into an animatic. (An animatic is a series of still images with a voice track - often a "scratch track" recorded by the animator, but in this case it's a rough version of the dialogue recorded by our voice actors at the weekend.)

It's been quite a tense few days here. It's very unusual to record the dialogue before the storyboards are finished. We usually go through lots of iterations with the sketches, and the work on the storyboards inevitably leads to changes in the draft script. This helps to make sure we're telling the story in the best way possible. It's important to spend plenty of time on the story process.

We were planning to record the dialogue yesterday or today. But, Cora Bissett's very busy this week so we ended up recording on Sunday. We didn't have time to go through the story process properly.

So, we did what we could. We acted out the script (quicker than drawing it!). We had the actors record a few lines we weren't sure we'd need - it's better to get too much than too little. We sketched some of the key scenes and put together a rough animatic that included a few sketches, a scratch track, and a lot of blank screen. We were as confident as we could be that the script was going to work for us.

But, we've been a bit nervous this week. Storyboarding when the script can't be changed is scary!

The good news is that everything seems to work well. The pacing of the episode is interesting: it starts slow, but is fast and frantic by the end. Take a look at the animatic to see. You'll have to imagine the movement and the sound effects!

Screen animation

Written by Helen Jackson.

This morning's job was creating an animation of Watson's laptop screen for the airport cafe scene. First, we needed a corporate website for Grazp Pharmaceuticals (complete with dino footprint logo, ResQgeek's slogan, and a photo of Grazp HQ):

Next, Watson needs to unencrypt as much of the Challenger journal as he can and find references to the water - it's a crucial clue:

And, while we're on the subject of animating laptop screens, take a look at Noteboek, a brilliant animation by Evelien Lohbeck that turns a paper notebook into a computer notebook (via @roncharles).

Blinking Nora

Written by Helen Jackson.

Today, a glimpse into the animator's world through a tiny, tiny detail: blinking.

Making characters blink is easy. It's more-or-less free animation: it takes moments to do, and makes characters look alive even when they're not doing anything else. The blink itself comes from moving an eyelid over the eye: it happens over three frames (there are 25 frames per second, so this is 0.12 of a second):

People blink, on average, every 3 or 4 seconds. But, even a hypothetical perfectly-average person wouldn't blink every 3 or 4 seconds - we don't blink on an exact cycle. We might blink twice in close succession, and then not for a while. It depends on what's going on. Sometimes blinking is in response to events (if there's a sudden loud noise - a gunshot, say) and sometimes blinking - or slower eye-closing - communicates something as part of our body language.

So, animating blinks is easy. Placing them takes a little more thought. And, we hope, this is a little bit of animation that you, the viewer, won't ever notice - it'll only be noticable if we get it wrong.

Roughed out

Written by Helen Jackson.

The animation "rough" for episode 4 is finished and handed over to composer Blair Mowat and sound designer Stephen Gilmore.

This is the second episode of The Lost Book that Blair's worked on - you'll remember his exciting, adventurous music for episode 2. By coincidence, Blair has again got an episode where the characters travel around the world, so it'll be good to hear what he does with it.

Blair will be working on the music today and tomorrow, ready for a recording session with players from the SCO on Monday morning.

At the same time, Stephen will be starting to get sound effects in the right place and build up the right sound atmosphere for the episode.

Meanwhile, here at Binary Fable, we're not allowed to change the animation timings now that the rough has been issued, so we can concentrate on building the last few props and sets, making small tweaks to the animation, and getting everything looking good with texture maps and lighting. Lots to do!

Animatic number 4

Written by Helen Jackson.

Here's the animatic for episode 4. (An animatic is simply a series of still images put together with a rough voice track. It's a tool to allow us to plan the timings of the animation.)

We've got almost all the sets and props built, so most of the stills are screen shots from our computer models. This means we have been able to finalise our camera angles - we only animate things that will be on camera, so it's important to fix their positions as soon as we can.

The one set that still needs to be designed is Grazp Pharmaceuticals HQ - we'll have fun with that!

Next stage: animation. We need to get an animation rough (which contains all the finalised timings) to composer Blair Mowat on Wednesday. Better get to work...

Deleted scene

Written by Helen Jackson.

Well, we've had an interesting few days! This morning we recorded the soundtrack for episode 3. Jane Atkins (viola), Su-a Lee (cello) and Alison Mitchell (flute) joined composer Michael Ferguson at the University of Edinburgh's music department. The recording went well and the music sounds fantastic - Michael did a great job and the players, as always, were amazing.

Less usual, though: Adam and I heard the ending of the music for the first time at the recording session!

As you know, Michael's been working over the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, he gave us a final draft of the music. We watched it with the rough animation... and decided it didn't work. Not the music, but the story.

At the end of the episode we have a taxi chase. Watson follows Otto Dafé's scent and alerts Aileen. Aileen and Lyn then need to rush out of the cafe, hail a taxi, and yell "follow that cab!" in true Hollywood style. We'd compressed this action to make it really snappy - one moment they're in the cafe, the next a cab's pulling up.

But, then we made a big mistake.

We knew that Aileen would love saying "follow that cab!". We also knew that Watson would be exasperated that she was joking around. We created a scene where Aileen and Lyn decide to say "follow that cab!" together, then fall about laughing, while poor Watson rolls his eyes in disgust (you can watch this in the animation rough).

All fine... except that it took all the pace out of the episode. As soon as we saw it with music, we realised that the jokey ending was a problem. The episode should end with a sense of urgency: Aileen is chasing the bad guy, after all.

So, what to do?!

We cut the last scene. Instead, the episode will end with Aileen's taxi drawing away from the kerb, seen from above, as she says "follow that cab!". No laughter, no response from Watson. A straightforward cliffhanger ending.

It's much better. But, it meant Michael had to re-work his music last night. He was working until 2am, as he needed to get the parts finished for the players (thanks, Michael!). And, there was no time for us to review the music before the recording - which is why it came as a suprise to us this morning. A really good surprise, I hasten to add. It sounds brilliant.

Frustratingly, the taxi scene was was the first to be rendered (generated by the computer - still frames below) so we're throwing away our only completed scene. But, it was the right decision.

The moral? The story has to work. If it doesn't, it has to change. It's better if this can be thrashed out at the storyboard stage (that's what storyboards and animatics are for), but sometimes difficult late decisions have to be taken.

Roughing it

Written by Helen Jackson.

We've finished the animation 'rough' for episode 3. It's been handed over to composer Michael Ferguson and sound designer Stephen Gilmore - which means we're not allowed to change any of the timings.

Michael's going to be composing his music over the weekend, ready for a recording session with the players from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on Monday morning. He'll have a challenging weekend! He's going to blog about the experience next week.

Stephen will be putting together his first mix soundtrack - getting sound effects in the right place and editing them together with the voice track.

In the meantime, Adam and I need to get the visuals looking good. There are a few tweaks to the character animation needed, and then we need to add lighting and textures. We've got a busy weekend ahead too.

Animatic online

Written by Helen Jackson.

We've put together an animatic for episode 3. (What's an animatic? Read our post Animatic for the people to find out.)

You'll need to use quite a lot of imagination to picture what's going to happen. We've used still images of the new sets, combined with some sketches. The important thing is that we're using the real voice track - recorded by the brilliant Cora Bissett and Sean Biggerstaff last week (more about that recording session later).

The animatic has helped us to finalise the camera positions and timings for the episode. The next stage is to animate! We need to have the animation finished by the end of the week so that Michael Ferguson, our composer for episode 3, can get to work.

Roughed Up

Written by Adam Brewster.

The animated 'rough' for episode 2 is done. We are on schedule and Blair Mowat and Stephen Gilmour can now compose music and create sound effects at will. Blair will be blogging his composing (which, by the way, he is doing in just one day - there's a challenge!), so keep a look out for his posts.

What you see is the next stage from the animatic we showed you last week. Never let anyone tell you that animation is quicker on a computer. This process takes a lot of time and concentration. The 'rough' is somewhat, well, rough looking, as we are only concerned here with movement. You'll notice that we've reused some of the stills from the animatic, where nothing impacts on the music or sound effects. You'll notice too, a few props from episode 1 that we've borrowed for convenience - Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy was left by Aileen in the cafe in episode 1, but will be a different book in the final animation for this episode.

So, next? We need to make things look pretty. It's a bit like decorating your house. The 'rough' is bare plastered walls, now we need to do the paint and wallpaper stuff. Oh, and tell the computers to generate the 2239 frames we need to put together for a week on Friday!

Animatic for the people

Written by Adam Brewster.

So, what is an animatic? It's a tool to help us plan what we are going to animate and avoid us wasting time animating things in the wrong places or things we just don't need. Storyboards are great for this, but the animatic takes us a stage further and helps us work out how much time each shot will take and how what we see relates to the dialogue. Now that we have Cora Bissett and Sean Biggerstaff's lines recorded we can get quite close to fixing where they will be in the final animation.

As you can see, it's just a series of still images that appear when needed, for the right amount of time - low tech but effective! Now we need to get onto the hi tech stuff.

The next stage for us is to take the timings we've settled on in the animatic and plan the detailed movements and camera positions for the 3D models. Then we go into our CGI software and animate the models (the ones we already have and the new ones we spent last week making), so that by the middle of next week we will have all the animation fixed in what we call a 'rough'. This will please Blair Mowat, our composer for episode 2, who will then be able to write the music knowing that the movement won't change. See, it's all about planning!

Finishing touches

Written by Helen Jackson.

The Lost Book got a mention in yesterday's Edinburgh Evening News: 'Animation draws out storytellers'.

As it says, we're putting the finishing touches to the first episode - actually, working frantically to get the last tweaks to the animation done before handing over to composer Alexis Bennett.

One of the hardest things we’ve had to deal with when animating episode 1 is avoiding the temptation to add too much detail, because we won’t have as long to create episodes 2-6. For each one-minute-long episode we’ll only have seven days to animate – not enough time for incredibly meticulous animation – and we want the web series to have a consistent style.

We’re using a simplified approach to animation that gives the characters very broad movements. They’re over-acting rather than acting. We’ve built character models without controllers for facial expressions, so their gestures say it all. We want the finished animation to have the distinctive look this will give.

If, at first

Written by Adam Brewster.

Animators dream of creating perfect character movement first time round, every time. Alas, not even the best animators can actually do it! It takes a few tries to get it right.

If we are lucky, our first pass is close and we check this by taking our draft animation clips into Adobe Premiere.

Here we can see how the movement we have created is fitting together with the rest of the draft animation and make sure that it is working with our actors’ recorded lines. Then it’s back into 3ds Max to iron out those imperfections.

Skeleton keys

Written by Helen Jackson.

Right, time to start looking at the details of how we animate.

The Lost Book is ‘3D CGI’ animation. CGI stands for Computer Generated Imagery. 3D means we’re working with three-dimensional virtual models (rather than 2D Flash animation). We use software called 3ds Max.

Just now we’re bringing the characters to life. Each character model has been rigged to have a skeleton. The top image shows Aileen and her dog with see-through skin so that the bones show.

Move the bones and the characters move. Every shrug or sigh involves tweaking a whole series of bones into the right positions…

An orange on a toothpick

Written by Helen Jackson.

Hello! I’m Helen. And, this is Aileen – on the bus, with her dog.

We’re finishing the animation for episode one.

Animation is fun. But, it comes with all sorts of problems. We’ve been asking questions like: ‘how fast can a dog read?’; ‘how do you react when your Mum goes all melodramatic?’; and ‘how can someone with a huge head move without looking off balance?’!

As this will be quite a constrained week for us, I’m putting a word limit on all blog posts and comments. Nothing over 100 words, please!