I wanted to create a commercial for the fake brand, “dutty Juice” I firstly started by changing the design. I wanted the logo to be smaller so that it was below the ridge of the can.
I was inspired by the images above and wanted to use this a an opportunity to use simulations to create fluid effects. I wanted it to be quite elaborate and tongue and cheek. I set out some goals to follow
I have already modelled the Can so I just need to adjust the can Label
Learn fluid simulations including splashes and condensation
Gather music that will go with the advert.
Think of slogans / catchphrases to go in the advert
I also realised that there was a spelling mistake! I also changed it so the “real squeezed peach/ aubergine” was a 360 degree label.
I also wanted to test how it looked if I took the nutritional information off the label. The energy content with the green and red is quite jarring for me.
This is the story board I prepared for the advert. I wanted it to start off as a scene in space where we see the edge of a planet, and as it zooms out the planet is actually a peach. And then it a voice says, in the beginning, there was the peach, and then there was the juice. Then a can rushes towards this planet and there is an explosion of juice.
As the weeks went on, I realised that to create the effects i needed to, it would have been a very steep learning curve and I would have also needed to utilise Houdini. Although I would love to learn Houdini, it is not practical to learn right now as there is not enough time.
I used after effects to put all the scenes together into one composition. I added music and gaussian blur in the part with the cans in the fridge and they first met each other. It was an opportunity add atmosphere and see how long it would take for each scene to play out. The whole thing is just over 4 minutes long at the moment. I was happy with the concept and how it most of the scenes flowed together.
Things I would like to work on
I would like more establishing shots of inside the inside of the corner shop, I would like a harsh juxtaposition of the roughness and the ugliness of the shop with the love that the cans feel for each other. I also need to add a scene where you see the can being out back into the fridge so there is more of a sense of reuniting.
There is alot I need to do so I think it is sensible to to take on all the modelling myself and to try and utilise the software I already know. I thought about using Houdini for the beach scene but I no longer think that this is practical.
These are the feedback sketches that George gave to me…
He said that I needed alot more overlap and follow through. I had created a really stiff body and I needed to create more of a pendulum. Something needed to lead, and something needed to follow. Plus there were times where I hadn’t added anticipation or a break down. I went back to looking at my references and tried to keep Georges advice in mind when I tried again
Blocking plus
In this version I kept an eye out for any stuck poses, and stiff movements. I really tried to go in with the follow through and remember the pendulum from last term
This was really tricky for me and I found it really hard to know which controller was best for the back to get the pendulum effect. I found it quite fiddley but started to get the hang of it after a while. I utilised the graph editor to try to make it flow more.
After doing my first pass at blocking these were the sketches that George made.
I need more anticipation on certain moves like the jump and to have a better silhouette for the lean back.
This was pass at blocking with George’s corrections.
Here I tried to concentrate on the silhouette and add anticipation. He also showed me when it was best to do IK and FK. I understood for the jump I needed to change it to FK. This made it way easier to control her legs during the jump
This is my after taking Georges notes and trying to simplify the scene. Instead of the women doing the tip tow walk off screen, she will just do a plie and jump off.
This was the first stage. I Just did the key poses here which was her sitting down, then leaning forwarding with anticipation, getting up then grabbing her back, dropping the walking stick the leaning back.
She then stands up straight then does a plie and jumps off screen.
This week I was trying to work out how to do a Parent constraint on the can.
From Nicks lesson I kind of understood but needed a bit of help differentiating the different types of constraints. This tutorial from Sir Wade really helped.
From there it was a case of animating the three “prong” things to grab the can. I then added a Parent Constraint.
When I went to Pairblend, I could click select, so I could see the key frames
From there I could turn the weight on and off to turn off the constraint. It ended up being alot easier than I thought. I added a swinging animation when the arm stopped and that was it!
This is a scene that is inside the factory I wanted it to look like
I have been trying to make a abstract part of the factory when a ball is coming down the spiral and turns into a can. I first trying to achieve this by taking the ball and animating it going down the spiral manually.
I tried to manipulate the graph editor to fix it but I found it difficult and messy.
I got a bit stuck on how to animate the ball on the helix. So it ended up looking like this, not smooth, and difficulty controlling the speed of the ball.
I needed to do a motion path, like I had learnt in Nicks class, with the shark/ whale however, trying to create a CV curve in a helix shape proved very difficult.
However! I found blogs and tutorials explaining how to create a helix shaped NURBS curve.
I created a polygon primitive helix and then selected an edge and converted the edge into a NURBS curve.
For this body mechanic I wanted one that would subvert the audiences expectation.
Having used to work with the elderly, I was influenced by the way some elderly with poor mobility stand. But as a twist I thought it would be cool if after they stand, they burst into ballet. This was my attempt below
After showing George the sketches and the reference, he gave me advise to change the second and the fifth thumb nail so there was more contract and bend and stretch
I wanted to gather loads references for the previs. I started with the corner shop. I wanted it to look like a typical corner shop in the UK but I wanted like a Mediterranean twist with the colours and cobble stones.
I basically wanted a smash up of several different cultures like in Big Hero Six where it is based Sanfrantokyo.
The look of the corner shop is super important to me as it will be the establishing shot and the ending shot. It will be where the cans first meet. I want it to have a bit of a rough look so that when the love story starts there is a bit of juxtaposition.
From theses images I was able to create several art boards. I gathered many images, these are just some have I was collated, however, I knew that the running themes were,
colourful
run down
Quintessentially British
tired
cobble stones
plaster pealing
Once I gathered all my references I used them to make a basic model in Maya. I will be redoing it for the actual final major project. But I like actual set up I quite like. I would like to replicate the fridge’s position in the shot. I like how it is visible in the window.
I have learnt alot more about modelling as well and feel like I am learning more techniques and becoming more efficient when I do model.
This week I was having a bit of fun with creating details for the project. I worked out that I could use UV mapping to add a label to the can. I didn’t what to use a real brand (/I don’t think I could use a real brand even if I wanted to…) so I took this opportunity to create a fake brand. I used Pinterest as inspiration. I wanted a really colourful brand that looked not only graphic but gave the sense that it was a cheaper brand of fizzy drink.
I wanted a tongue in cheek brand name. I wanted a something that would nod to climate change but had difficultly coming up with a name to fit this. But instead I thought of “Dutty Juice”, dutty being Jamaican patois for dirty. I wanted it to be a nod to it being an extremely sugary “dirty” drink. I wanted it to look appealing yet unappealing.
Photoshop
I first started in Photoshop where I could sketch out my initial ideas and create some colour schemes. I looked at brands like Fanta for inspiration as I liked how the brand used fruit on the packaging. I wanted to make it quite cheeky by adding a peach and for a different flavour which was aubergine.
I started with the peach flavour and liked the idea of having a pink and blue theme to start off with. I created a few artboards so that I could be quite free and experiment.
Illustrator
It had been ages since I had used Illustrator so was very keen to get back into it. I wanted to use illustrator as I had used it before for creating typography and thought it would be idea to get that clean graphic / vector look I wanted to achieve. I used a random Coke label I got from Google images as a way to help me proportion the label.
I started off by just tracing the design I created in Photoshop. In hindsight, I maybe could have just cut the peach and stuck it into the Illustrator design but I wanted it all to be vector. After tracing the peach and droplets, it was just a case of using the colour picker to select the colours I wanted from the original design.
I then moved onto the typography. I found a font from Adobe Fonts that I liked that I thought would go with the theme.
I like the font but thought it wasn’t super clear when I had it on the background I wanted. So I just slightly adjusted some of the letters like the U, Y and A’s. I just had do something called Expand Appearance which turned the letter into adjustable shapes. From there I could use the Shape Builder Tool to cut out the shapes to make them more readable.
From there I could use the colour picker to add the desired colours and added multiple strokes with different colours to give it a more retro feel. I then added a warp so that there was a bend to the words. I added a drop shadow to both the words and the peach and droplets.
For the background I then added a stroke that thinned out towards the centre and duplicated it around the centre. I added a soft light blending mode against the pink background.
The details on the peach were achieved by creating shapes that had gradients and then a Blur effect added on top.
For the nutritional information and the other things found on a can.
I then duplicated the document and just adjusted the colours which was easy, then got some reference images from Google and used the pen tool to draw the Aubergine.
I think I will need to do some tweaking but I was pretty happy with how it was looking so far.
