FINAL PROJECT - PART 2 - PRODUCTION AND EDITING

My Final Film 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v9nAN_llOM&feature=youtu.be

Setting the Scene

My scene takes place entirely within a sphere with an image mapped to the lambert texture... I believe this is known in the industry as a 'sky-box' or more specifically in my case a 'sky-dome'. This method is used in a lot of games and CGI animations to create the illusion of a 3D environment. The image I mapped to the texture is a photograph I took of the sky in Brighton. I applied the same technique to the fence I have in this scene. I simply mapped a photograph I took of a wooden fence to a flat lambert plain in Maya and created the illusion of a wooden texture on the fence. Its not perfect but it was interesting to apply techniques, even if it was at an amateur level, that many industry professionals use on a daily basis. Here are the two .Jpeg files I used as textures...

Production

Once I had set up the scene the next thing I did, before even starting to animate, was get the walk cycle right. I went back and looked at the Digital Tutorial walk cycle exercise. I took note of the key principles, the contact points, the ups, the downs and that crucial component that I still feel is missing from my previous walk cycles; weight.

I practised using the DT walk cycle on the spot and tested moving the finished rig across the screen from right to left across the X axis...

It was only after this test that I felt comfortable enough to proceed with the final film. I had already done a lot of tests with the ball and tail rig and I felt comfortable enough to use it. There was one problem I ran into though, concerning the overlap and follow-through of the tail... I just couldn't get it right! I do feel that this is still something that needs work. It is a key principle that I have yet to get to grips with ... check out this Playblast of the test, I still think it needs work... 

The tail is not acting the way I wanted.. and whenever I try moving the tail to add overlap and follow-through, two key principles I'd just like to make clear that I am very aware of, the rig breaks and the tangents rip apart. I found no way around this problem and it was actually a problem I have encountered before with my previous ball and tail animations. I asked my lecturer and even searched for options online but to no avail. Perhaps its just a problem with the rig Ive downloaded, but, honestly, Ive tried everything...

The collision scene

When I was storyboarding the scene where the two characters meet in the middle initially I had the idea that the ball and tail would push animo out of the way because he was in a hurry or something. But as I was making the scene I realised it would have a better visual impact if the ball and tail passes by without even noticing animo, as if to suggest that they have had an argument in the past or something and the ball and tail is cross with animo... maybe?... the only limit here is your imagination, and thats not the point. The point is that I thought through the production of this scene that it would be funnier if animo was ignored by the ball and tail, despite animo's clear knowledge of the balls presence. Because, you know, rejection is always funny right?! No. I jest. On a serious note though, I believe this change is beneficial to the final film. It adds more appeal to the character and his reaction to this rejection which you can see in the final shot where he storms off stage in a mood. 

Here is an early Playblast of the collision scene:

Final shot - Grumpy Animo

When considering the final shot I knew I had to reflect the change in stance as the rejection has an emotional affect on animo and I wanted that to be portrayed in the movement of the character. I wanted the viewer to get the impression that he is upset, distraught and moody. I lowered the back and dropped the hips. I also increased the speed of the steps and added more impact to the downs. Moreover, it was crucial to get the 'grumpiness' into the arms and hands... it needed to be shown that animo was agitated. To animate this sort of reaction I closed up the fingers on the rig and clenched the fists and had the arms sway violently so as to get across the impression that animo is angry. The key thing here is, of course, the head. Throughout the rest of my scene the head remained relatively untouched, (apart from a few minor tweaks to add to the weight aspect of the walk) but within this shot I leaned the head downward and rotated the neck... the viewer is always drawn to the head, it is what gives away the most emotion so it was crucial to get this bit right. 

Editing

The editing and post-production phase was done using After Effects. I tried my best to stick to my original vision for the film and consulted my initial sketches and storyboards. This was because I knew if I went along and edited without looking at my first storyboard I would have ended up with three different movies; my initial storyboarded film, the film I actually produced and the film I finally put together using After Effects. This is a problem I have encountered before but this time I wanted to remain loyal to my original idea because I was told by my peers that it was a simple yet effective idea that conveys everything needed for this unit. 

Once I was happy with all of my shots, I went back into the project files, played around with the graph editor and flattened the tangents to make the movements smoother, then rendered the individual shots (consisting of between 2-4seconds long) using the batch render, Maya Software and exported them as .tiff image files. After waiting several hours, I imported these .tiff sequences into After effects and placed them together on a single composition and made my final movie. 

Although I do feel proud of my final film I do believe it could do with some work. For instance, The collision scene needs to be revisited. I found that movement of the rig very difficult to achieve, I simply rotated the rig and had him raise his arms and head. It looks very robotic. I couldn't think of any other way of doing it. I understand that live action reference would have helped. If I had gone outside with a camera and filmed myself turning round I could have used that reference in my film and fully understood the movement. Another niggle I have is the overlap on the ball and tail. I really cannot understand what I am doing wrong here. With most of my problems I encounter with Maya I go away and seek advise from others or look into the problem online using tutorials or other rigs... but for this problem I have honestly done everything within my power to avoid it because it is a problem I had met previously in my other ball and tail animations.  

Overall, I have throughly enjoyed using Maya, although there were some stressful times and A LOT of software AND hardware problems! Ultimately I am pleased with what I have learnt and I believe that it is an efficient way of learning the principles of animation and creating an effective, if a little robotic, animated film. Hope you enjoyed observing this journey as much as I enjoyed living it. THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT!  

FINAL PROJECT - PART 1 - PRE-PRODUCTION

For my final project we are using the Ball and Tail rig and the Digital Tutors rig to create a small scene where the two characters are involved with eachother in some way.

In order to come up with a story I first pitched some ideas to my peers. I then Storyboarded the best idea onto these sheets.

My idea involves my character walking along merrily, minding his own business, when suddenly a bouncing ball and tail comes into frame and pushes our character out the way. I had the idea that this character is very sensitive and emotionally frail so something as trivial as this would have a great effect on him and as a result he instantly changes his walk cycle to reflect this... he becomes grumpy and nonchalant. He then sulks off screen kicking dust as he goes.

Its a simple but effective idea that incorporates everything we need to demonstrate within this final project. Its crucial for me to apply the principles Ive learnt this term into the final film. For example, I want the audience to get the impression that the ball and tail is angry or in a rush just through the movement of the ball. Like, Im thinking of implementing what Ive learnt in the timing and spacing lessons; to have the ball bouncing quickly, key frame the ball with less frames so as to make the ball appear to move faster.

Who-What-Where-When and Why

When coming up with this idea it was important for the characters to have some-what of a backstory so as to add to the 'appeal' of the characters. We were asked to invent scenarios for our characters asking who they are, what they were doing in the scene, where it was taking place, when it was taking place and, most importantly, why it was happening. 

This idea is something I cannot wait to work on, I really want to implement what Ive learnt this term and apply it.

WEEK 3/4 - Walk Cycles

Our third exercise was the Walk Cycle. We were initially taught how this was done by hand in 2D Animation by Richard Williams. We were shown a video tutorial from his book. In this video he explains that there are 5 key poses that you need to get right at the beginning of a walk cycle, then you can go ahead and add the inbetweens. The first and last contact points are the same but reversed, the down and the up are when your character is putting their weight up or down and finally the middle position is called the 'passing position' which is where the characters leg is behind the other leg.

With these key positions you can create a simple walk cycle in 2D...

Here's an example of a simple walk cycle that I made in 2D:

Its simple, yet effective and it takes into account the 5 key posses of a walk cycle. However, this is something I have always felt comfortable with but what happens when I start applying these techniques in 3D?

Walk Cycles in Maya

We were given a rig by our tutor that resembled a ball with legs and we were to make a convincing walk cycle using the knowledge we'd been given by the video. Firstly we set about creating the five contact points, the contact points (as you can see from the image above) are all placed on a specific frame on the timeline. For example, the first contact point is placed on frame 1 and the last on frame 25 (working on 25fps). 

Once all the contact positions were put in place you get a simple walk cycle like this:

To better understand how I'd distribute weight and other animation principles such as squash and stretch to my walk cycle I needed to get a better understanding of how people walk. I filmed this live action reference of me and my friends practising different walks and it really helped me when I got around to adding more to my walk cycle... especially the 3rd one I made...

Live action Reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SaleS2XfoA&feature=youtu.be

Once I had my reference material I was able to go back and add some squash and stretch and some weight to my walk cycle...

Digital Tutors- Walk Cycle

The third walk cycle I made was one where I followed a series of video tutorials and I found them extremely helpful in that they helped me get to grips with Maya. I found that I could learn what I was being taught in the video tutorial at my own pace, for instance, if I didn't understand something I could just go back and re-watch the video... it was a pace I was comfortable with. 

I am most proud of this walk cycle because despite some minor clipping issues I have managed to distribute weight, arcs and spacing evenly displaying that I have applied and understood the key principles of animation...

 

WEEK 2 - Ball and Tail

The second exercise was a simple ball and tail animation with a focus on the principles of follow-through and over-lap. I understand that follow-through and Over-lap are crucial parts of any moving character, anything like a cape or long hair that moves after the character has done his/her key movement can be considered Follow-through...

This is a little character I created. See his cape there? If I was to go ahead and animate this guy (like I intend to one day) I would have to consider the movement of the cape. Follow-through is any movement that happens after the key movement has been done...

It doesn't have to be a cape either, Follow-through can relate to other things like a piece of rope or a characters tail perhaps...

I was doing some research on these principles and came across an excellent tutorial from Digital Tutors on Over-lap and Follow-through. It was really helpful in trying this sort of thing out in 3D...

DIGITAL TUTORS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2wJA9eX3yA

When trying out my own tests on follow-through I was given a rig from my tutor and told to play around with the tail. The rig we were given was a rig of a ball and tail and we were asked to move the ball and then have the tail follow the ball as if it were attached to the ball on a piece of string. To get an idea of how this would work I did a simple test moving the ball across the screen and the ball following it. Here is my result:

As you can see the test was merely to get a better understanding of the principle but as I was doing this I found it very difficult to adapt to the new 3D ways I was being taught. As I have mentioned before in my previous posts, I have been taught in a predominantly 2D way and this new software programe we're using is difficult for me. However this exercise has helped me get to grips with the interface better and I feel that I am picking it up much quicker than I initially expected.

Interaction with an environment

We were given an environment for our ball and tail to jump around. When given this set we were told to think of what type of character our ball is going to be. I chose my ball to have a very bouncy and energetic demeanour so that I could further practise my ball bouncing skills and also have a really interesting character to animate.

Our ball was to interact with the environment in a certain way. I decided my character, being athletic and energetic, was going to jump up the steps really enthusiastically and then reach the top, become overzealous and then fall back down the stairs. These movements and key frames were drawn out in my sketchbook initially (see above) so that I had a rough idea of how it was going to look.

Upon building the scene in Maya I came across a number of problems. Firstly, I had added a deformer to my ball and tail so as to implement some squash and stretch elements to my piece but I found the rotate tool to be somewhat of a thorn in my side with this move. For example, I was rotating my ball several times during the production of this scene but as I was doing so the pivot point moved around the rig erratically and I had some problems detecting it.

I also found making my ball and tail do a 360 degree flip incredibly difficult.

I also sped up the final film so that the movement was more quick but I feel that by doing this some of the movements are too quick and you can barely even recognise what happens at some points.

To conclude I feel that this animation needs some work... a lot of work, and I will get round to it at some point. Ultimately, I have understood the key principles and researched them throughly, however, I do understand that I still have a lot to learn about Maya but I know I am beginning to get the hang of it and this exercise really helped...

WEEK 1 - Timing and Spacing

ANIMATING A BALL BOUNCE


For our first project we did a ball bounce exercise in Maya focusing on the first key principles of Animation; Timing and Spacing.

The first thing I did was think about the type of ball I wanted to animate. I also practised what I'd been taught before by testing out timing and spacing on paper.... just drawing it out first. We were taught that there's a key difference between timing and spacing in animation and that it is crucial to get the timing right otherwise your movements will look crude. The way I understand it is that the timing is where the you decide to place your key frames, so if you have a man walking across the screen from left to right, you would just draw the two key frames on either side of the page. The spacing is the frames in-between those key frames and this is where you can get creative...

I have been studying a book called The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams and within it he  states that the timing and spacing will dominate the action of your animation. I have chosen to animate a tennis ball bouncing on a soft carpet... here is my reference video of my ball bounce:

To get a better understanding of the timing and the spacing I had to refer to this footage a lot. I was looking at the time it took for the ball to fall and hit the ground the first time and then bounce back up again. I came to the conclusion that it takes roughly 4 seconds for the ball to stop bouncing. A tennis ball is rather light but it has a nice bounce to it. This is a quick test I made in Maya influenced by what I have learnt here...

You can see that I have considered the timing and the spacing here but I have yet to fully get to grips with Maya's interface. I am finding it very difficult as I have never worked in 3D before and it is a lot of information to remember. There's still a lot of work to put into this ball bounce but I know that I understand Timing and Spacing very throughly now...

SECOND BALL BOUNCE TEST  \/\/\/

Focussing on a slightly bouncier ball for my second test...

Here is the finished version which has much better timing and spacing and I have also flattened the tangents using the Graph editor ...