Recycle Bin Drag Race

For this project, we will be using objects from the recycle bin as the material for a vehicle design. Choose any object you find in a recycle bin (bottle, can, carton, etc...) and create a design for a vehicle that will utilize the recycled object as the primary material.

The components of the project are as follows:
Brainstorming
Thumbnail sketches
Vehicle design (using Photoshop, Corel Draw, Flash, )
Animation of the vehicle (using Flash)
Collaborative race design, storyboarding, compositing, animation

The finished, animated car is due Friday March 6th at the end of class.
The finished race is due Friday March 13th at the end of class.

Vehicle Design
Create some thumbnail sketches detailing the look of your car.
Photograph your recycled object from the front, back,side, top, and bottom against a plain white background. Get a classmate to take a photograph of you in a driving pose.
Using Photoshop, create a new document and name it “yourname_car”
According to your concept in the thumbnails, create a vehicle which is able to accommodate a human and contains at least 1 moving part.
Each moving component of the vehicle must be saved into a separate document as a PNG. Be sure that the vehicle and the components have transparent backgrounds.
The vehicle must consist primarily of a manipulated photograph of the recycled object but you may use drawings, effects and other techniques to enhance the look.

Animation Part 1
Using Macromedia Flash, create a new document sized 800 x 600px and set to 15 fps.
From the insert menu, insert a movie clip.
Import each of the PNG files saved for your vehicle into their own layer and position them appropriately. Name the layers according to the content.
On a piece of paper, plot out the way in which you wish to see your vehicle animated including approximate timing and the types of motion required (position change, rotation, scale, opacity, colour).
In the Timeline window, right-click on a frame which will be your end frame (15fps means that 60 frames would be 4 seconds) select insert frame.
Do the same action for each layer.
Right click on the keyframe at the beginning of each layer and select create motion tween.
Right click on the last frame of each layer and select insert keyframe.
At any point in the timeline, right click and insert a keyframe and alter one or more properties of the image in the particular layer.
Continue with a similar strategy until your vehicle is moving the way you expect.
Save the animation as vehicle followed by your name.

Team Animation
As a team, you will create a race between your two cars. The race will consist of at least 4 shots covering the beginning, middle, and end of the race. Each team member is responsible for half of the shots.
Design and animate a background with at least 1 moving layer.
Distribute at least 2 shots to each group member to animate.
Bring together the finished shots and place them in order on your main timeline.
Export your finished movie and save it with “yournames_race.swf”

Marking

/10 Photographs are well exposed,
/10 Planning and project management. Workload was well organized and submitted in a timely fashion.
/30 Vehicle Design is convincing and appears realistic. Driver looks to be in the car. Numerous techniques were used in Photoshop
/20 Vehicle Animation is well executed and detailed. Movements make sense
/20Background Design is suitable for the race scenes and has numerous layers moving convincingly
/10Storyboard Storyboards are complete and well concieved. Go
/30 Collaborative animation.The finished animation is detailed, well-constructed and paced. Cinematography works well together. Entertaining.