What do you do if you have a little extra creative energy, you want to create a cool original piece and maybe try out a new technique or two? Well, if you're an animator like me, you might enter one of Nick Campbell's Five Second Project competitions.
A project that is five seconds long
If you check out some of the work that has been done for these competitions, you might imagine some complicated set of rules, but you'd be mistaken.
Here are Nick's rules:
Submissions must be Five Seconds Long!
Only animation is accepted. Video only submissions will not.
The animations has to do with the theme in some way.
Original Work only. Don’t cut out 5 seconds of already made work.
Link back to GSG on your Vimeo Post
My Process
Of course, I didn't just jump straight into CINEMA 4D like a J-hole. No, I thought about it a little bit, came up with a concept, and sketched it out on an expensive piece of paper.
Ideas work better when sketched upon expensive paper.
If you can't tell from watching the animation, the idea is that a piece of paper rolls through an abstract offset printing press. When the final image is revealed at the end, the camera flies through it to reveal a second scene with the letters "CMYK."
Modeling
To begin building the "printing press," I started in Illustrator and mapped out where each roller would be and the path that the paper would follow through them. This line art is not simply a guide to use later in 3D. These lines were imported into CINEMA 4D and used directly to create the 3D rollers, paper, and gears.
3D objects in their larval 2D stage.
Here's what those lines became, after some more clicking of the mouse.
A peek under the hood of the two black (K) rollers.
The second scene
The idea I mapped out in the beginning stages of the project suggested that a second scene may be built to create the imagery for the final "print." I knew I couldn't spend a ton of time or energy on the second scene, but I think it came together nicely for being a bit of a quickie.
Easy. Breezy. Beautiful.
Animation
Once I had the modeling out of the way, I had to animate everything. I used keyframes to record the motion of the camera, the spinning of the rollers, and the path of the paper. I also, for the first time ever, used expressions to link a certain attribute of one object to that of another. I may create a tutorial further explaining that technique later.
A general view of the animation keyframes.
Final thoughts
I like how this turned out. It's the first time I've done a Five Second Project and I may do more of them in the future. I learned a few new tricks and ended up with something worthy of my reel. Keep an eye out for more.
What do you do if you have a little extra creative energy, you want to create a cool original piece and maybe try out a new technique or two? Well, if you're an animator like me, you might enter one of Nick Campbell's Five Second Project competitions.
A project that is five seconds long
If you check out some of the work that has been done for these competitions, you might imagine some complicated set of rules, but you'd be mistaken.
Here are Nick's rules:
Submissions must be Five Seconds Long!
Only animation is accepted. Video only submissions will not.
The animations has to do with the theme in some way.
Original Work only. Don’t cut out 5 seconds of already made work.
Link back to GSG on your Vimeo Post
My Process
Of course, I didn't just jump straight into CINEMA 4D like a J-hole. No, I thought about it a little bit, came up with a concept, and sketched it out on an expensive piece of paper.
Ideas work better when sketched upon expensive paper.
If you can't tell from watching the animation, the idea is that a piece of paper rolls through an abstract offset printing press. When the final image is revealed at the end, the camera flies through it to reveal a second scene with the letters "CMYK."
Modeling
To begin building the "printing press," I started in Illustrator and mapped out where each roller would be and the path that the paper would follow through them. This line art is not simply a guide to use later in 3D. These lines were imported into CINEMA 4D and used directly to create the 3D rollers, paper, and gears.
3D objects in their larval 2D stage.
Here's what those lines became, after some more clicking of the mouse.
A peek under the hood of the two black (K) rollers.
The second scene
The idea I mapped out in the beginning stages of the project suggested that a second scene may be built to create the imagery for the final "print." I knew I couldn't spend a ton of time or energy on the second scene, but I think it came together nicely for being a bit of a quickie.
Easy. Breezy. Beautiful.
Animation
Once I had the modeling out of the way, I had to animate everything. I used keyframes to record the motion of the camera, the spinning of the rollers, and the path of the paper. I also, for the first time ever, used expressions to link a certain attribute of one object to that of another. I may create a tutorial further explaining that technique later.
A general view of the animation keyframes.
Final thoughts
I like how this turned out. It's the first time I've done a Five Second Project and I may do more of them in the future. I learned a few new tricks and ended up with something worthy of my reel. Keep an eye out for more.
