Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:25:53 -0600 (CST) From: Mark Jacobson To: 810-088-12-fall@uni.edu Subject: Storyboarding assignment... Hi VE, A, and MG students, I showed an example of a storyboard at the end of class today and assigned your storyboard for your final project to be due one week from today before you leave for Thanksgiving break. 1. A storyboard is a written description and/or drawings and diagrams/sketches of what your little movie or animation will be. Here is the example I showed in class: Its a 12 step storyboard. 1. 3 spacecraft, flying saucers fade in from black ... 2. They flip up clockwise in sequence ... ... 11. MFJ training slides into place and the 3D turns and lifts off, as the intro sequence 12. Fades to black As you can see, this storyboard was both some hand drawn illustrations of the action mixed with some informal descriptions of what happens during each phase. http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/m/wk13/3D/storyBoardAE.html 2. What is a storyboard??? Story board - Sequence of drawings with descriptions - note the 12 descriptions on the 1st image above (numbered in RED). - Story-based description Your storyboard can be done with pen or pencil and paper. It does NOT have to be done with Photoshop or any graphics software or any word processor. 3. Here is another example of a storyboard: i. A ball shrinks and then grows back to its original size again. ii. The ball then jumps up in the air and over a wall. iii. The ball then rolls from the front of the scene (stage) to the back of the stage, and it squeezes itself through a pipe about halfway across the stage. iv. The ball then rolls back to its starting point, again going through the narrow pipe to do it. This 4 step storyboard was for Maya 3D graphics class, and as you study and look over all the links from the web site, you will see the realized Maya animation (with AE text effects added to it) that realizes the storyboard concepts. 4. What is the purpose of having a storyboard exercise? The whole purpose of the storyboard exercise is twofold: i. To get you to come up with a rough idea of what you might do for your last After Effects open-ended assignment, so you at the very least get started on thinking about it before the last minute, or writing down a description of what you have already done, if you started a week or two ago, and ii. to give you the experience of the planning phase and non-technical brainstorming phase that occurs BEFORE going to computer graphics software where you just sketch out and/OR write out a description and/OR a couple drawings of what you might do. Note: We will look at BRAINSTORM feature of After Effects on Monday 11/15 and Wednesday 11/17 in class. 5. Another example of a storyboard? Please watch the Maya 3DBuzz video tutorial on storyboarding. It is excellent and will put this example (the talented ball) in context). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The STORY - The talented ball comes out from behind the curtains and jumps over a short wall barrier or a hurdle of some sort and then goes behind the curtains again, after which they close. 1. The curtains are closed. 2. The curtains open up, and they have a sway effect when they reach the fully opened state as taught by the 3DBuzz tutorials and demonstrated in class. 3. A ball is observed on the stage, and now it rolls out from behind the curtains to the front of the stage. A barrier or hurdle of some sort comes out on the stage either right before or right after the ball rolls out. 4. The ball squashes and stretches twice or perhaps three times in Anticipation of jumping over the "wall" hurdle. 5. The ball jumps over the "wall" and lands on the other side. 6. The ball rolls back behind the curtain. 7. The wall barrier the ball jumped over moves back behind the curtain. 8. The curtains close. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Does your final project/assignment that you publish on sunny.uni.edu and submit via emailing the URL to jacobson@cs.uni.edu have to match what you storyboarded? NO! Can the final project differ in many ways from the initial storyboard plan of the action? Answer: Sure, it can be very different, as needed. Answer: Sure, it can be COMPLETELY different, if you want or need to scrap the original ideas and concept and go with a totally new one. See Week 12 Friday 11/12 and Saturday 11/13 Calendar links. http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/AE/2nd5weeksFall2010.html See spring 2010 AE projects. http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/AE/projectsVEAMG.html Watch the 9:21 (9 minute and 21 second) video tutorial on storyboarding at 3DBuzz. Watching the Overview of the Talented Ball video tutorial would put it in context too. Overview of the Talented Ball 6:13 Storyboards 9:21 http://www.3dbuzz.com/xcart/product.php?productid=32#samples Here are some of the final projects from Spring 2009. Most of them have a theme using the Talented Ball idea and curtains that open, sway, and close. http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/m/fp/finalProjects.html All were done using Maya (Autodesk Maya), but you can get ideas from them for your After Effects final assignment. See especially Elaine's with the audience reaction to the talented ball's performance, and see also Chet's pool table story with door, window and pool table action for the talented ball story. But they are all very good. I can't wait to teach Maya again in the fall of 2011! Only ONE student out of all of these students published their own Maya up to sunny.uni.edu, so all of these projects are on my account. Maya to After Effects to Flash Video (FLV) to Flash SWF and HTML and then up to sunny.uni.edu was too much in Spring of 2009, but in the fall of 2010 most of the Maya students were able to do that part on their own. Mark