olofstorm

Second Character

Now that I have made the main character for the film in 3D I thought I might as well get the other guy in too. Here I could take the first one and just tweak some proportions and details to match up with my second guy.  Unless the character is completely different structure wise, I see no point in remodelling him as the base shape for the body is pretty much the same. This character is a bit skinnier than the main one so I went over the mesh with the magnet tool and pushed things in a bi...

Patreon Video - Episode 27 - Texturing the Character

Sooo, lets keep looking into the process of creating my 3D characters. Last time we focused on pure modeling, so here I wanna give you a overview to how you can pretty simply texture the character to look a bit 2D. As I create these to only be used as reference when 2D animating, I will take shortcuts and make things slightly less clean than if I were to render this as my final thing. 

Something I also think we can explore in future episodes is how I eventually animate the characte...

Patreon Video - Episode 26 - Character Modeling

Stoked to share the first video in a series of episodes about my 3D character. Here we are mainly looking at the process of modeling the base shape for the character from scratch. I think seeing this can be useful to some with a little bit of modeling knowledge, but I will for sure make a video in the future about basic modeling for those who might want things to move a bit slower. 

Feel free to drop any questions or comments below. Happy to get your feedback on things.
I have d...

3D Version of my Character!

I spent most of yesterday pushing polygons around and modelling this 3D version of my main character for Obsession (my film). I'm really pleased with the result of how close to my drawings and design he looks. Though I will not use him as a rendered 3D character in the film, having a 3D version will definitely come in handy as I can use him as a base layer and then draw on top of it. I can play around with different framings of the character and also different poses for the shots.

For a...

Patreon Video - Episode 25 - Hardware

First video of 2021! 

This time we are talking about what Hardware I use. I often get a lot of questions about what tablet I use, what specs I have for my PC etc so I thought I would just collect it all here for you guys.
I think sometimes hardware matters and sometimes not. Most times not that much to be honest. As I say in the video I built my computer in mid 2016, and it is still holding up alright. Even for pretty heavy 3D work it is still managing, tho it can sometimes lack...

Patreon Video - Episode 24 - Photo References

Hope you are all well! 

Crazy how fast this year went. Strange year for sure, and hopefully we have a less chaotic one coming up.

Anyway! Here is a new video!
This time I talk about references. I think they should be used as much as possible. For backgrounds, for character acting, for details or whatever you are making. Don't be afraid to use references! My main advice would be to shoot your own ones as you then own all the right to the content. 

I will for sure...

Slap to the top-hold!

The countless attempts one goes through to get that one send-go! 

These 3 shots will be followed by a few similar fast cuts of our main character falling into the crash pads. I might need more of these to get the sense of loads of attempts, but I will start with these and go from here.  If in the end this sequence feel to short then I can always add more.

Sound design will do a lot for this sequence. I will cut from a really peaceful nature shot into this quick section, ...

Critiquing my old Animation

This video will be dropping soon on YouTube but I wanted to let you guys have early access to it first. 

This was really fun to make, looking back on an old Animated short film I made in 2013 and breaking down the scenes and commenting on the full film. Even though its around 8 years that I worked on this film I am still quite happy with how it plays back. I definitely have things I would do different now but taking in account that its old I still like it.

If you like we coul...

Patreon Video - Episode 23 - Preproduction Rambling

I made a video a while back for YouTube where I spoke about my preproduction process when it comes to making animated films on my own. In a previous post I asked what you guys wanted to see for these Patreon videos and Jamie Burton mentioned Storyboard and pre-production, so I thought I would give you an updated view on that. 

As I say in the video I am not preaching for any specific method when it comes to this. I am simply sharing my own process and really am not saying one way i...

Patreon Video - Episode 22 - Photoshop to After Effects

I have a few reasons for animating in Photoshop. One is I just really like the software as a painting and illustration tool, but it also works very well in my After Effects pipeline. 

I like a non destructive workflow where I can keep working and updating my animation at the same time as it works in my After Effects file. If I were to import the full Photoshop project with all its layers to After Effects and then do hours of work on it in comp, updating that PSD could cause problem...

Patreon Video - Episode 21 - Clean Linework

In this real time video I work on another shot for the film. I had already done the rough animation for this shot but thought it could be interesting to see how I draw the detailed character on top in a real time format. 

The recording baked the music in the same file as the Voice, and I do recognize that it was a bit too loud and competed with my voice at times. I do also realise that I should speak up a bit and try not to mumble as much as I did here haha! xD

Hopefully you ...

Patreon Video - Episode 20 - Wind Lines

Hey! In this video we take a look in After effects on how you can create tapered lines, and in this case to show wind direction in a stylized way. It used to be quite tricky to get a line to taper off before. Its mad that it took Adobe so many years before that feature were added but I am now happy its there.

I used to have to use Particular to create a similar effect and that's what I did for the shot we look at in this video originally.  But this new feature will speed up that pr...

Animating climbing moves

Hi guys!

As we saw in the two most recent Patreon videos, I was working on the wide shot of the climber pulling on to the rock.  This shot is the first shot showing any climbing in the film. I have kept working on it and will soon go into colouring, which is one of the final passes I go trough in the animation process. Slower movements like we see in that shot are harder to animate than what you see in the second shot. The second one which is way more dynamic and obviously shorter ...

Patreon Video - Episode 19 - Clean up in Realtime

Was not sure if this video contained enough to actually publish, but on the other hand I think its better to put stuff out than to hold back? Or you let me know. Maybe some of you find this interesting. 

As I mention in the video I am quite interested in doing some live streams. I would both be interested in doing it publicly on YouTube and also here for you guys. I think here on Patreon we could maybe do some interactive streams where I check out some of your work and give my feed...

Patreon Video - Episode 18 - Rough Animation in Real Time

Here comes quite a long video for you. As animation is incredibly time consuming I thought that maybe the best way to see another artists process is to actually watch it in real time.  

The part I am showing in this video is what I would consider the hardest part of 2D animating. Getting the driving keyframes down.  It takes a lot of concentration and focus. I apologise if  it was not filled with a lot of knowledge sharing. But I thought that just seeing me work and tryin...

Patreon Video - Episode 17 - 5 methods for Compositing 2D

Glad so many of you guys gave suggestions on what you wanted to see. Here comes a first video looking at some common comp techniques I use to make my 2D shots come to life.

We can definitely explore more methods in AE and dive in deeper for more complex scenes etc.

Do keep the suggestions coming as its really useful and motivating to hear what you guys want to see. 

Suggestions for new video?

Hey! Wanted to hear from you guys what you would want to see me tackle in upcoming Patreon videos. Please drop any suggestions in the comments below or you can also send me a private message.
We could look into more 2d animation bits and bobs, after effects tricks, 3d workflows (c4d) or whatever you think would be interesting.

Patreon Video - Episode 16 - Particles

This time we are looking at Particles!
I have been using the AE plugin called Particular for many many years and its one of the only plugins I would say is an absolutely ''need to have''.
I have used it on endless projects be it 2D animations, Motion graphics projects and VFX shots.
This video turned out to be quite a long one as I decided to go over most of the settings within the plugin. Maybe some of you already know all this, but if not, I hope its useful.
Particles are a gre...

Keeping things consistent

Oh boy I have a lot of rocks to paint for this film. But the good news is that it's quite enjoyable. It just takes time. There are a few town shots in the film, but 90% is located in the wild, so hopefully at the end of this my nature paintings will have gotten better. Creating a film is always a journey and stages of artistic development. I want to keep the backgrounds looking consistent but since I create this project over a longer timeframe, eventually I will have gotten better and therefo...

Patreon Video - Episode 15 - Creating a River

I got some requests about creating water from you guys  and also to expand on what I showed in the YouTube Video about the small creek I created a while back.
Now I needed a shot for the film where the snow is melting and the rivers are flowing, so I took the opportunity to work on that shot and to then be able to elaborate a bit further on how you can create 2D looking water.
I am really happy with the result of this and hope you like this breakdown.

The pattern I made for...

Patreon Video - Episode 14 - Painting B-Roll for my Animation

Working on the short film again. Have gotten a few shots painted in the last few days. Been squeezing it in between client work and general life admin. Excited for how these shots are turning out. 

As I mention in the video I think a way of levelling up my nature paintings is to focus on trying to accurately portray the types of plants that grow in specific spots. Even though some plant brushes are sometimes awesome I don't want to rely on them for every shot and especially when we...

Patreon Video - Episode 13 - 2D FX Lightning

Wanted to follow up on the smoke and explosion video I did recently by showing how you can make some lightning 2D FX pretty easily. This mainly requires finding the right motion for these to look good. Drawing wise its pretty forgiving if you just add a bunch of squiggly lines and add some glow to it. 

Hope you like this quick little demo.

New YouTube video dropping soon..

I have been making a lot of videos about how I animate in Photoshop. I even made one called ''Animating in Photoshop - The basics''. But I feel like I never managed to cover every aspect of it within one video. SO! I decided to make a dedicated video that does just that.

This is aimed at anyone who wants to use the animation tools within photoshop. I think a lot of people don't know that It actually has some pretty decent workflow possibilities. Currently it fulfils my needs when it com...

2D FX Animations

Following up on the recent topic of 2D FX animations that I posted videos on both here and on YouTube I thought it could be cool to create a bunch of assets to start to build a library of these things. I thought this could be something I keep adding assets to over time as I create them.

The explosions I made in the two videos are up on the asset drive for you guys in the Elder tier to access if you wanna play around with them. I also made a few electrical FX that I uploaded and that I t...

Patreon Video - Episode 12 - 2D FX Animation

I just posted a video on YouTube showing a time-lapse with commentary of me animating a 2D explosion.  I'm really quite satisfied about how that that turned out. So I wanted to elaborate a bit on the technique I use to create something like that. 

I think sometimes it helps a lot to see someone work in real time to be able to fully follow along with what's going on. A time-lapse gets the general methods across, but seeing someone tackle things without much editing might be mor...

Patreon Video - Episode 11 - Basic Texturing

In this video I  wanted to show you guys something a bit more beginner friendly. Even though simple UV mapping is something quite fundamental, I think many might not know fully how to use it. It is something I didn't start looking into until relatively recent.

I think this has gotten a lot easier in the latest versions of C4D. Not sure if you could do all this in older versions but I really love texturing my objects by selecting polygons, looking through the correct camera angle an...

Patreon video - Episode 10 - How I Paint Clouds

I have been working hard on a game trailer for a friends game company where I have had to paint a bunch of clouds backgrounds as the game is set in the skies, featuring airplanes. I thought it would be cool to just give you a quick demo of how I go about blocking out some cloud shapes in a relatively short period of time.

As I say in the video, clouds can really help to shape a composition and allow us to lead the viewers eyes where we want to.

Here are a few cloud backgrounds I h...

Early Render of the Environment

Been working on and off on this shot in parallel with a commercial job I am currently on.  I think the environment is starting to come along nicely. Its quite noisy as I rendered it on a low sample rate but you can sort of see where I am going with it. 

I think the final thing will be around 400 frames. So to animate the 2D character over Janas acting will take its time. I will have to find a good simplified design that allows me to draw her relatively easy. 

I stil...

Endless Texturing

Been doing some good progress on the shot. However populating the scene and texturing it takes a lot of time. Since I am not using photo textures for anything (we are aiming for a more stylised look) I will have to paint every texture myself and since we are moving through a 3D space each element has to be Uv mapped and have those textures applied to them. The camera is almost doing a full 360 move, so I will have to populate every angle, which definitely takes its time.

By having the c...

Patreon video - Episode 09 - Modelling some Engines

Yo! This time we do some straight up modelling. Been populating the scene I was working on in the last video with some houses and I have also been working on the vehicle that Jana walks onboard.  Thought maybe some of you guys would enjoy a bit of modelling workflow.

Feel free to drop any questions below!