Tomas Patlan - Demo Reel

Tomas Patlan - Portfolio - May 2013

Animation

Backgrounds

Character Designs

Illustrations

Layouts

Storyboards

Sketches

Life Drawing

72+ hr GameJam

My girlfriend and I had been toying around with the idea of putting together a little game for an idea we had but had trouble finding time to sit down and push something out. This week we finally decided to develop the idea a little further and do a 48 hr. game jam.

We've both done game jams before but with a few other people. This time it was only the two of us trying to put something together and 48 hrs was just not enough time. We're running close to 72 hrs now and I haven't even been able to start programming yet so this project is going to be a bit bigger than originally anticipated but we're not in a hurry.

Anyway, here are some samples of the artwork and animation I did.

I also came across some playback issues with the GIFs in different viewers. IE and Explorer wouldn't play them at the proper frame rate so if you find the animations are really slow, just imagine they're silky smooth... or watch them in a different program.

Flash to Flipbook

In my animation course, two programs we use to create and compile our animations are Adobe's Flash (http://www.adobe.com/products/flash.html) and Digicel's Flipbook (http://www.digicelinc.com/flipbook.htm).

Today, one of my classmates ran into troubles bringing in her Flash-exported animation into Flipbook. This post is my solution to that problem.

The issue between the two programs is file types. Flipbook will only accept 32 bits-per-channel TGAs as colored overlays and Flash won't export them. My solution uses Photoshop's batch processing to convert an exported PNG sequence to a TGA sequence with an alpha channel.

The first step will be exporting from Flash. You want to "Export movie..." from the File menu and choose to export a series of PNGs (with transparency/alpha channel).

Now, because Flipbook will only accept TGAs, we need to convert the PNGs. I've created a Photoshop action that'll do just that (Photoshop CS3 action, should work with newer versions).

Once you've downloaded the action, it needs to be loaded in Photoshop. To do that, you have to first open the Actions pallet (it can be found under Window -> Actions or Alt+F9 on a PC). When it's open, click the pallet options button in the top-right corner of the pallet and choose "Load Actions". Navigate to the downloaded actions file and hit open. This will add a new actions folder named "Flash to Flipbook" with an action named "PNG to TGA".

Now that the PNG sequence is exported from Flash and the Photoshop action is loaded, we can use Photoshop's batch functions to quickly convert the PNGs to TGAs. So go up to File -> Automate -> Batch.

From here, you'll be presented the batch functions window. Compare your settings with the picture below and make sure to choose your source folder and output folder. Ideally you should have all of your PNGs in one folder and have another folder that will only have your TGAs once Photoshop is done.

When everything looks OK, hit OK and let Photoshop do its thing. Depending on your computer and the number of frames you're converting, it could take a while but when it's done you should have a folder full of TGAs ready for import into Flipbook as colored overlays!

...Now for those who care about what is happening, the process behind the action is quite simple.

Flash exports a PNG with a pre-multiplied alpha channel meaning the transparency is "baked" into the image. We extract this baked in information by selecting the pixels of the PNG based on each pixel's transparency (CTRL-clicking a layer will do this, or go to Layer -> Select Pixels). From that selection, we make a new channel, call it Alpha 1 (its default name), and fill the selection with white. This gives us a white blob that is the shape of the object we want to see (white is visible, black is invisible, and the shades of gray are varying degrees of opacity).

Now that we have a separate alpha channel that Flipbook will read, we need to make the image a straight-alpha image, meaning we get rid of that "baked in" alpha data. We do this by duplicating the layer a bunch of times (15 in the case of this action), effectively making the semi-transparent pixels (anti-aliased edges) opaque. Before we merge the image back down into a single, flattened layer, we add a new layer to the bottom and fill it black.

I chose black because if there's any fringing after the process (which there shouldn't be, but just in case...) black will be more appealing and less obvious against a darker background (which I imagine will be the scenario more often than not). In the off-chance that you have a really light BG and you notice fringing, you'll have to modify the action slightly to fill that layer with a lighter color, instead of black.

Once the layer is in place, we collapse the stack, leaving one layer. Flipbook will read only the color data from the layer and then turn to the alpha channel for the transparency.

Gestures with personality

Here's another life drawing assignment submission. This time we had to do gestures, ranging from 1 to 2 minutes each. Or at least my decent ones were from between that time frame. The assignment is to be marked based on anatomical structure, character, rhythm, gesture line, and posing.

Takeoff

Here's another 3D animation update. This time I've got two to put up.

The first is a box jump. The criteria was that we had to have the little character step up to and jump onto a box that was at least half his height. What came after that was completely up to us but he had to get off of the box somehow. I chose to have him launch himself off with a mighty jump. It was originally going to be that he farted and that would propel him off the box but I couldn't figure out how to optimize the particle system enough to keep render times under an hour per frame.So I got rid of it. Anyway, here it is!

...and the other animation I have is a walk cycle. We were given a new rig this time; one with arms. It proved to be quite a bit more complicated, simply because there was more parts to move. I had my guy walk to a pretty sweet beat (71 bpm) inspired by this song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJjhNqUzcPk).

He's a little jerky in places and I had some trouble incorporating overlapping action and follow-through but hey, I ran out of time. It's possible I might come back to tweak him some more but chances are slim. It depends on whether or not he'll be making it into my demo reel at the end of the year.

Here's the video:

If anyone has any comments or critiques, fire away. It really helps.

Drawing Jam Update - Colbie Smulders

Here's another drawing jam update. This time it's of canadian actress Colbie Smulders.

All drawing jam posts contain artwork that I've done using inspiration from Tara's drawing jam blog. You can find it here: http://tarasdrawingjam.blogspot.ca/

Bouncy Face Smash

Our latest assignment was to animate a little guy running up to and kicking a soccer ball.

I learned a good few things from this assignment but I think I'll start by detailing some of the technicalities.

This animation (and the stair stepper) was made entirely using 3DS Max. I used the Mental Ray renderer with all global illumination and final gathering turned off. This eliminates shadow flickering in the animation caused by the final gather solution and prevents the increased render time from the global illumination.

I opted instead for manual lighting which was very basic in this scene, simply because the focus was on animation and because I've already been sitting here 4 hours after class has ended. Doing so meant that there would be no flickering (because final gather was turned off) and render time was lessened considerably (apparently the mental ray ambient occlusion map is less demanding than global illumination).

All of the materials that I wanted to have ambient occlusion had an instance of the mental ray ambient occlusion map attached to the ambient color slot. To allow this, the ambient and diffuse colors have to be unlocked from each other. I then added an omni light in the scene that produced only ambient lighting (no diffuse, no specular) and turned the intensity down to about 0.5. The sun is just a simple targeted spot light with an intensity of around 1. Also! in the ambient occlusion map, the "light" color was changed to a deep, warm yellow and the "dark" was a dark burgundy. This added an overall warm tone to the scene. The highlights are never stark white and the shadows are a deep red instead of straight black.

...for those that were interested.

As far as things learned go (looking at it again a day later), bright green is a BAD color to use for a ground. Heck, even a medium gray would've worked better.

Number 2 is that I need to save a LOT more often. What I have posted is my second attempt because I lost everything in my first attempt because of a program crash.

A reiteration of what we've learned before is that a sense of weight comes from holds at the low positions and extra time to move upwards, in effect lessening the time it takes to fall, over the span of the motion. The angle of the hips really helps the effect as well although it's much harder to implement.

Western Town Layout

One of our assignments from last semester involved making an animatic for a western-themed short film for which we had to design backgrounds and animate a few sequences for. Well we continued on with that project as a refresher to Flash by taking one of the backgrounds we drew and cleaned it up. I chose this one  that I had used for a 3/4 walk cycle.

Here's the original drawing:

...and the finished piece. With a subtle pan.

Ball With A Skirt

We're starting to deal with drapery in our animation class now and as an intro to dealing with cloth, we had to animate a simple ball moving up and down while wearing a skirt.

One of the challenges we were given for this assignment was to refrain from turning on the light in our light table, preventing us from seeing the drawings beneath the one we were drawing on. This was to get us back in the practice of flipping where you hold sheets of paper between your fingers and "flip" them back and forth to simulate the animation. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFFq_-XCfq4.

It's a good way of seeing if the animation is working the way you want it to without having to take the time scanning and compiling one frame at a time.

Anyway, Here's what I cam up with:

Stairmaster

So we're in the beginning of a new school year and I'm now in my second and last year of animation.

One of our classes is 3D animation and we received our first assignment which was to animate a little ball guy walking up a flight of stairs. This was my first 3D walk cycle.

Summer Drawings

Summer's nearing an end VERY quickly and proved to be very unproductive as far as art has gone... in my case.

I've had very little time for drawing but I managed to get set up for caricatures in different places around town. These are only a few of the ones I've done. There might be more if I can remember where I've saved them.

Rock Paper Scissors Playing Cards

This is a bit of an older piece, made in Illustrator almost 2 years ago. It was an assignment where we had to create a set of playing cards, following a certain set of criteria. I don't remember what they were now but I decided to go with rock, paper, scissors.

Sunny Philly Drawing Jam

So here's another entry for Tara's Drawing Jam. This time it was Sunny Philly.

If you'd like to check out more drawing jams from myself and my classmates, head over to http://tarasdrawingjam.blogspot.ca/!

Some Layout Designs

Here are two layout designs I have made to be used as backgrounds for animations either already done or to be made. They were both made in Adobe Flash as class assignments to learn the program.

The first is a mad scientist's laboratory to be used with run cycles that have yet to be posted and the second is a "pirate ship"...

Cloth That Folds With Some Bright Lights Shining On It

These are a few recent tonal studies of drapery. The assignment required 5 fully rendered drawings of cloth that folds with some bright lights shining on it.

The top 2 were drawn using conté and the rest were done in charcoal.

Drawing Jam Dump

So here are a few more drawing jams of mine. First is Leprechaun, followed by Myth Buster's Grant, Jamie and Tory

If you're interested in seeing more drawing jam entries from my classmates and those from the yr 2 program, head over to tarasdrawingjam.blogspot.ca

3D Haunted Mansion

One of our projects in our intro 3D class was to take the layout we designed for our haunted houses and turn it into a 3D environment.

It's not finished but it meets the project requirements so It'll be put aside for now. Maybe I'll come back to it someday.

Modeled in 3DS Max and sculpted in Mudbox.

Life Drawing Dump

Jungle

First round of my jungle layout. This was to be used with the whip animation but because of lack of time at the moment, I can't focus on troubleshooting the compositing issues I was having fitting the monkey into the scene.

Revisions have been done to this layout and once I get a decent scan of it, I'll post it up as well :)