Thursday 13 January 2011

cubéle

So this is my little buddy cubéle....



He was sort of a quick idea to test a few things in After effects, and after I got done I kinda liked him and started developing it into a mini short, but it never got finished :/


You can see the plan is very simple; The little cube runs along excitedly to some music. At certain points the camera zooms out quickly, colour changes and he's in a new mode of transport. This keeps happening (on the beat) until he's riding a planet, maybe a galaxy.

I imagined it to be fun and colourful, maybe 30 secs or so. But currently there's no story hook or character play... stuck ...so I'm going to open it up here for ideas! Tell me what to do, don't be a square! hehe...

8 comments:

Geoff King said...

Hey Ruf, I have no idea how you did this in AfterEffects but it looks great!!
As for the story/character dilemma I might have a few tips that you may find helpful!.. .

You could think about allowing your character to be affected by the atmosphere in his location and the "feeling" it creates. Is he excited, scared, angry, sad, hungry? You should also think about where he is traveling to, where he has traveled from and why. I dont really have a story idea for you but hopefully thinking about these things will lead you in the right direction! ;)

Ben Ho said...

Very nice dude! Liking how simple the character is, its border inanimate object and living being!
The only thing I can think of thats a lil odd is the trailing arms. The far one is shaking more vigarously than the one nearest us but to me it seems like they should be similar to each other.
Very cool idea n colours dude! Looking forward to more adventures from Mr Cube!

Aurorah said...

oooo I really like this. I've been trying to learn more about after effects and would love it if you could direct me to any tutorials you might think are good.(basically I want to know how you did this) Nice work!

Nicola Coppack said...

looks lovely! and kind of abstracty? i was thinking story wise, maybe u can have a second little cube or shapely character that he can react to/interact with? to like get some emotional responses? Nothing complicated though! but like while hes going up through the beats maybe it can go in tune with another little dude, like they play off each other..

Of course im sure u have ur own direction u wanna keep a hold of so it was just a playful suggestion!

L Rossi said...

Looks very cool, Rufus!

I think if it's a short 30 seconds or so, no need to complicate with too much story.....
1)Maybe see where is and where he wants to be/go (e.g space or star etc)
2)Have the journey process (going through all the transport he takes, moving up the levels
3)Have him like crash or fail at some point
4)Then have him overcome it in a cool way to reach his goal!

Nice designs and colours as always!:)
L

Nubian Greene said...

I can't really add any more input other than what has already been said.

But dang! that must have took a while in AE! all those layers eeeeeeeeerg!

:)

Ruf Blacklock said...

Thanks very much guys, all really helpful. I think I'd be interested in setting up a goal right at the start as Laurent + Geoff said, where he wants to be. Then with the successive zooms out, reveal how its achieved. NEED A GOAL!

Ben- the animation is yeah, pretty first draft, i got the look and pace i was after, but will spend more time on the movement deffo

Aurorah, I'll try and find some relevant tutorials for this stuff and post it up :)

Nubien - this was one eve! so hopefully i could get 30secs pretty quickly, i want this to be a piece i wont get hung up on.

Cheers guys :D maybe storyboards next...

David Delany said...

Looks good!

It's interesting you chose a cube as the travelling character - I was just reading the art of UP and when it comes to the shape of characters acting as shorthand for their personalities, Bob Peterson says: "Most of the dynamic characters surrounding Carl - Dug, Russell, the Bird, and Ellie - have curves. They are sort of rolling, off-balance, moving forward. Then here comes Carl, least likely to change. He's the square that all of those circles have to push so that he can actually start making changes."

30 seconds is probably too short to introduce another character, but if you did - I'd put my money on a sphere for some interesting dynamics ;)