Report

Report

This report explains what we did while working together on this project for CRE514 Digital Compositing. The video we created was a “Super Mario Video”.  We both enjoy a combination of video games especially Super Mario and thought we could create something with this thought of idea.  Mainly for the project, we worked together on this project through meetings around the University and at home instead of doing things separately.  We worked out a plan at the beginning for when when we could work together as we felt it would be better to work together throughout the project than on our own.  During the year we had many Skype meetings and met through the holidays to complete the final video together. We worked very well together as we know each other very well, and we mainly agreed on everything that we were going to put in the video.  We both had numerous ideas and needed to look at each in great detail.

We had some issues with animating as both of us didn't have alot of experience.  This was really our only issue.  Everything else worked very well.  There was just a couple of things that took more of our time than others.  When putting our objects and sprites in the video we needed to go through trial and error to make each work with the video.  The test videos we did together went really well and allowed us to see how things work.  We both really enjoyed it and it was giving us more ideas for our final video.

Blogs that relate to us working together

• Group Presentation- Week Six
• Contact Sheet - First idea - Around the Derry City
• Contact Sheet - Sheet - Second idea - Green screen objects
• Test 1- Working with green screen images
• Storyboard- Story- Start- Middle and End
• Tests- Super Mario

Ryan looked online for the Mario gifs and then we decided to test out the Mario gifs together so we can listen to each others ideas. 

• Working together- Getting more footage 
• Background Testing
• Background with object test
• Background with objects and sprites
• Group Presentation- Week Twelve
• Background Contact Sheet
• Background Images

In relation to the background we thought it would be best if we both worked on it.  We both created different backgrounds and added images in and then discussed after what one looked best.  Afterwards we mixed up the images together.   We believe that as a group we worked really well which can be seen in our work.  During the project we rarely had any arguments about what we were going to do which was a big boost as things ran smoother.

• Background test and Final background
• Green screen footage
• Video Sounds

Ryan mainly looked up all the sounds and found the websites to download them, we then disgust what music/sounds we were going to put in the final video, after talking with our lecturer, he give us really good feedback and with the changes made, we added more sounds to the video and made it much better. 

• The Final video- Steps
• Final Video
• Updated Script
• Lecturers Feedback- Final Video- With changes

Things we did on our own

Blogs that relate to Ryan

• Moodboards
• Test- Mario knocks down block
• What’s the story?
• Piskel app- Making things easier
• Creating our own sprites
• Video Script
• Bus Test

Blogs that relate to Lavinia

• Moodboards
• Timeline
• Equipment
• Creating our own sprites
• Rough write up of script

Lecturers Feedback - Final Video - With Changes

Lecturers Feedback

With our lecturers feedback we decided to add some extra scenes to the video and speed it up to 12 frames per second.  The previous video was rendered at 24 frames per second. Everything now runs alot smoother and isn't as jumpy.  Our lecturer has a very good point with this feedback.  Because the video starts so fast it is hard to tell what is actually going on.  We needed to act fast and correct this by adding an additional sprite to the start extending its length.  We decided that adding a big exclamation mark above Mario and adding some additional sounds would make it better.  With Mario taking a break during the video we thought it would be good if Mario lay down and took a nap.  Adding an additional gif  ...zzz helped as well.  We thought adding some Mario speaking sounds to the video also.  This would bring out the scenes and make them more dramatic.  We did have one issue that happens 55 seconds in where there was a jump in the footage.  Aside from that everything is great!

Final Video

https://vimeo.com/151545219

Ryan: With these changes I am alot more happier with the video.  Adding the Mario speaking sounds and suggestions from our lecturer has really improved it.  The video is still a bit jumpy and in some areas Mario moves quick and in other parts he moves slower.  At least you can tell what is happening in the video now whereas last time you couldn't.  I would have liked Mario to move at a consistent speed throughout.

I feel that we have progressed and performed well in this project.  When looking back at the start to now we did so much work for it which has all contributed towards our final video.  I like how our work features both of our ideas combined.  When meeting up we did have personal issues and weather recently but we simply rescheduled and then worked onwards from there with no problems.

Lavinia: With the changes we made, me and Ryan are a lot happier with the improvements we made. Getting feedback from our lecturer really helped us make the video better, the additional sounds made the video more clearer on what the story was about, Mario missing the bus and trying to get to the next stop. Me and Ryan worked really well together and kept with our schedule of what we were going to do. The only issue we had was weather issues during the christmas holidays because we couldn't meet up to work. The weather was holding us back a little.

Overall Im very pleased with our final video. I like how our work combines nice together. The objects and Mario sprites blends well together I think. Mario is still a bit jumpy in places, we did try to fix it but we couldn't find the problem that was making it jumpy, so we couldn't really fix it, other than that, everything else went really well. 

Updated Script

Updated Script

With sometime left to finish the project we felt it would be good to look into our video and fix some of the issues.  Similar to the previous script we wrote down everything that was going to happen and when only this time it was written in more detail.

Final Video

Final Video Link

https://vimeo.com/150684589

So we finally came to create our final video after so many tests and ideas.  While creating this we had a script drawn up which was very useful when working on After Effects.  It allowed us to work quicker.  Our video consists of a mixture of our green screened objects, some Super Mario Sprites and our own sprites and of course Mario.  If it wasn't for the tests leading up to the video then we would have been in big trouble.  The sounds and music really brought the video together.

Ryan: I am very happy with how the video turned out.  I was surprised with how well it turned out as myself and Lavinia don't have much experience with animating.  It took alot of trial and error and long hours sessions to put it together  I don't like how the video is jumpy in alot of parts which was caused by the jumping gif placement.  I would have liked to add more objects and explore more ideas.  We could have added more to the video like other animated objects in the background.  Having the actual level on a shelf would have been cool as well.  I would have liked to animate the video so Mario kills some of the enemies instead of jumping through them.

Lavinia: I am very pleased with the outcome of this video me and Ryan created for our project. Im surprised how well it turned out because me and Ryan aren't animators. it took a lot of planning and tests to create this video, I was enjoying working with Ryan as we did a lot of experimenting with the tests and felt like with the planning we did, you can see it in the video. The video is a bit jumpy, we can go back and make few changes to improve it more. We could have added more of our ideas that we had to make it more difficult for Mario to get through the level.