CG - Potential & Limitations - Technique

In terms of character animation in CG, personally i don't think there are any limitations because although you have the limitations of the rig, there are squash and stretch rigs and even ways to break the rig for certain scenes if it's needed. I do think that these things take more consideration and problem solving than hand drawn animation for example because in hand drawn animation there are no limitations at all to what the character can do and all you need to do is draw the change.

This is a games animator show reel that i thought was amazing, it really shows the squash and stretch potential for rigging and the beauty of the timing and overlapping animation applied to computer animation.

CG - Potential & Limitations - Process

The process of computer animation can be very fast compared to traditional animation or it can be very slow and problematic. It all depends on the experience and skill of the modeler/rigger/animator. I find that the process of computer animation works in a sort of hierarchy, for example if the model is good and the topology is good then the texturing and rigging will be easier and if the rigging and skinning is done well then the animation stage will be alot easier than if the rig is unorganized and problematic. In terms of animating the scenes there is a common workflow used in which the animatic is is made first to get the idea of the action, then the layout is made which uses the low poly meshes of the characters and just very basic blocking, no secondary action at all. Then the final animation with all the secondary action and then the shot with the final lighting. This process is similar to more traditional mediums although traditional mediums have more steps in the process due to clean ups and colouring.

                                          3d progression reel for 'Monsters University':

 

                                          2d progression reel for 'Little Red Robot Hunter':

 

CG - Potential & Limitations - Aesthetics

Computer generated animation has a very defined and general aesthetic. There are some variation in computer generated aesthetics but i think there is much less variation than other mediums such as hand drawn. I think this is due to the influence of the big CG companies such as Pixar but I'm sure there are different aesthetics for 3d which have not yet been explored. This is something we are trying to do in our project by having a hand painted aesthetic in computer animation. Computer animation Varies from other mediums in animation in that it has almost an aesthetic capacity due to the constant software/hardware changes but these aesthetic changes aren't dramatic.

Pixar type aesthetics are the most thought of for computer animation but video games and special effects for movies have different aesthetics which often includes more realistic looking models and often a less saturated colour scheme. 

Character and Narrative - Week 6 Summary

This week i finished tweaking the rigs because i kept needing to add changes and fixing bits of the rig that i was unaware was broken. For example when i tried to do a test animation on the rigs i wasnt able to set keyframes on the transform attributes of the controllers, this was because i had used set driven keys keyframes on the controllers and therefore could not have a keyframe set also. I got around this problem by setting set driven keys on the groups of the controllers rather than actually on the controllers. For example with the hand curl controller, The set driven keys are on the group of the controllers so that the controller still curls the hand when moved in the x axis but the fingers can also be controlled by the individual finger controllers and can have key frames set on them.

We also made a change in the story to have both of the characters summoning the spirits at the end instead of just totsi being able to do it because we think that's a better ending and will add a better moral influence to the story.

This week we also started painting the textures for the characters and the props once we had modelled the props and unwrapped them and the characters. If we painted straight onto the uv print outs some of the uvs might have shown through and therefore when scanned in would have been projected on the model, to get around this problem we used a lightbox and painted on a separate piece of paper above the uv print out.

Character and Narrative - Week 5 Summary

This week I completed the rigs added blendshapes for facial deformations and set driven keys to drive the blendshapes visually. I also skinned the characters which was a lengthy process, it was definitely a challenge skinning both the clothing and the body to the skeleton because i had to make sure both meshes were skinned so that there was no overlapping even in extreme poses but still had to make sure it moved like clothing. I spent a while during the skinning process on the shaman for this reason, i made use of the component editor alot to see how the vertices were being influenced if they were not how i wanted them. I found totsi alot easier to skin because her coat, although having more components moves more uniformly to the body Although the tassels at the bottom of her coat didn't skin well so instead of spending hours skinning them i just created an alteration blendshape for them. Because I'm working with Brenda on this project and she doesn't have much knowledge of maya i have made the rigs as user friendly as i can by locking and hiding unused attributes, appropriately naming controllers and appropriately shaping and placing controllers. I feel like I've learnt alot from modelling and rigging these characters and i think having a good mindset is important in learning these skills or any skill in fact. For example if i had a problem, getting angry or discouraged isnt going to help anything but appreciating the problem as a way to learn the program/skill further is a much more healthy and productive way of learning new skills.

Character and Narrative - Week 4 Summary

This week we had the group crit session which was helpful, one of the main issues was that the story was not clear in the animatic so Brenda is going to define the animatic further. we also have to think about how we are going to capture the textures into the computer because scanning them in might lose alot of quality. I began rigging my shaman character, i wanted the rig to use IK controls instead of FK controls like my last 3d character because IK controls are alot easier and nicer to animate with. I found making the IK joints relatively simple and i learnt about using clusters for the spine IK. At first i was going to try making a joint based facial rig and then i realised i might as well just make a blendshape driven facial rig as this is both easier to make and easier for the animator to control. I added aim constraints for the eyes and the head which i had to alter quite abit to make the head move realistically. I made the eyelids joint based instead of using blend shapes because blendshapes use a linear path to get from the original position of the vertices to the altered position of the vertices whereas joints rotate around a pivot point which suits the motion of the eyelids.

Character and Narrative - Week 3 Summary

Once i finished modelling the shaman character i unwrapped the model in the uv editor so that Brenda can paint the textures, i overlaid alot of the uv's to save space. Since me and Brenda have different skillsets we thought it would be more efficient and more professional to work to our skill sets. Therefore Brenda is working more on colour, set design and props and im working on modelling and rigging the characters. Although when the characters are rigged we will both be animating them. When i began modelling the Girl i duplicated the shaman mesh, resized it and deleted the head, this was alot faster than starting fresh. i was debating whether to put the tassels on the coat because it might be an inconvenience when it comes to rigging but if i don't try it then i wont learn anything. Because me and Brenda are doing different tasks it feels like i am working in an animation company, for example when Brenda handed me the character sheet and i modeled her character from that and then later on i'll hand her the rigs to animate. I also enjoyed modelling Brenda's character because it was quite a 2d suited design and a different design to my usual characters but i managed to adapt it for 3d and i think it works well. once i modeled both the characters i started thinking about ways to rig each character, there are multiple ways to rig a feature so i am working out the best way for each feature.

Character and Narrative - Week 2 Summary

Over the past week we have solidified the story to a good standard, designed our characters further and i started to model the shaman character in Maya since i was happy with the designs. I have learnt a lot already from collaborating with another person, i have learnt that i should be more critical with my ideas and look at them with a level, unbiased opinion to see if they work. Another thing i think is very advantageous when working with others on a project is the fact that everyone's mind works differently and everyone's consciousness is greatly varied which means everyone interprets the world in different ways and therefore thinks about things in different ways and has different thought processes. This has an impact on the whole process of animation but especially idea generation and story development, if each person is open to other's ideas but also clear about what they like and dislike and egos are nonexistent i think its a really productive way to work.

Once i was confident with the designs for the shaman character i decided to start modelling the character in Maya straight away because i want as much time saved for solving problems as possible because i don't know how many problems we are going to have to face at the moment. The modelling process was fairly straight forward although i had to re-do my topology to make the character deform better. Whilst modelling certain tricky parts like the hands and feet, i played around with different ways of modelling them and different topology. When designing the colour scheme for the shaman i realised i knew very little about colour theory so i will need to study that before i go much further.

Character and Narrative - Week 1 summary

To start the project off we started working on some story ideas based on the starting themes, we chose to focus on the 'a message' theme and started thinking of rituals as a message to higher powers or spirits and narrowed it down to native American rituals, summoning spirits. We were thinking of either doing paint on glass animation or doing CGI in Maya, we decided on Maya because for character animation it is easier to get across the characters emotions and feelings accurately with Maya. We used a whiteboard to get down ideas for the story and the characters, I've been reading books on story development and character design over the past week because i feel like this is my weakest area.

 I think the story and characters are the most important stage of the animation process because its fine to have strong technical skills but if the story is boring and the characters are unimaginative and uninteresting then there isn't really much point in the animation. If the analogy of a tree is used, the story and the characters are the roots and the technical skills and post production are the branches. Since i am working in a team i have had to adapt to working with another person and splitting the workload which i haven't needed to do that much so i thought it would be good to try it out since it's good practice for working in the industry. Once we decided on the characters we each assigned ourselves a character to design, i am designing the Shaman which is the spiritual member of the tribe who can contact the spirits. I made sure to start simply and design the character in terms of basic shapes and i kept in mind that i would be modelling the character in Maya.

 

Modelling a truck in maya

I found modelling the truck quite helpful for learning the basic tools in maya when i first used it. I really enjoyed the process and made sure i understood everything i was doing. To light the truck i used a spotlight and a directional light, i used the directional light because the right wheel and the bit underneath was blacked out completely so i used the directional light to illuminate those areas slightly to make them visible.

National Geographic Ident Progress (Maya) - Modeling a Frog

For my national geographic ident i decided to do it in maya because now that i am familiar with the tools and know what i am doing it will take much less time than any other medium. I also enjoy making animations in maya I'm not just doing it because it's quicker. I was quite stuck for what to do for the national geographic ident so i had a think and came up with the base idea of modelling a frog in maya and maybe making it croak and the camera could just pan out from the frog to get the logo in full shot. I thought the simplicity would match the mood of the channel.

Animating a Walk Cycle In Maya

For the animation skills study task we had to animate a pre rigged character in maya. I didn't find this too difficult because i had already become familiar with the animation tools in maya but i probably should have added more overlapping action onto the arms and subtle movements on the body to show the weight shifting. I added overlapping action onto the feet though and the controllers for the feet and legs made it very easy to do so.

Modelling a skull in maya

For my 'Do It Yourself' item i chose to model a skull because i wanted to challenge myself. It wasn't that difficult to model but it was hard to get the brow ridge right and i think i could have done the teeth a lot better. To rotate the skull as a whole i first had to parent all the teeth to their respective part of the skull and then parent the jaw bone to the main skull mesh so then everything moves and rotates together and not separately.

E4 Ident Progress (Maya) - Lighting

The default lighting on maya lights the scene sufficiently but it was very boring and there were no shadows. After testing out the types of lights i settled on having a slightly dim ambient light and a directional light.

E4 Ident Progress (Maya) - Animating

I started animating my character, i found it hard to create natural looking movements but next time i will start by blocking out the main poses first and then the breakdowns and in-betweens because my workflow wasnt very good but at least i know for next time. To set keyframes on all the controllers at once i created a script that would select all the controllers for me when i clicked it, this saves a lot of time when animating.

E4 Ident Progress (Maya) - Modelling The E4 Logo

I needed to model the e4 logo so i could put it into my animation so i created a free image plane to put the e4 logo image onto a plane for reference and started modelling from a cube, because this model isn't going to be deformed the topology doesn't matter too much.