Character Animation

Ok so the character animation project was a real challenging one which I really enjoyed. Animation is a field which I would really like to get into so it was great having a chance to focus on portraying character through an animation. We also had to do some lip syncing which is something I never done in 3d before so I really looked forward to giving it a try. The first thing I attempted to animate was my character skipping towards an oven. The character I want to get across was that of a child so I did want to try and portray him as being 0energetic and full of fun. The skip was a lot harder than I thought and I struggled to get it looking fluid and bouncy. I’m not too sure if it was due to the angle that I was looking at it from, but it just didn’t work. The next part the character would look realise there was something in the oven, look hungry, check the time and realise the food was ready and get the tray out the oven. This piece didn’t work either. I think the real problem was that there were too many emotions put in a small amount of time which really wasn’t realistic or needed. This is something I need to work on in the future, I tend to try put too much into my animation where using less would look make it more believable and a lot smoother. Next the character walks over to the oven and gets out the tray, reacts to the food being nasty and then sighs and walks off saying “I may as well go back to making noodles”. I think this part of my animation worked a lot better and the lip syncing even though not that visible seemed to work. The weird thing is that I spent a lot less time on the end bit than the begging and it seemed to work a lot more. Overall I really enjoyed the exercise and need to push myself more to do more character animation. I need to concentrate on second reaction animation and need to act out and time what I am animating to get better timing and more believable actions.

Last week was such a busy week for me. Trying to get the bible and pitch ready, finish and render my Dyson animation and still work on the Exeter project was a lot to cope with and really needed this weekend to recover Lol. But I'm happy because I think our pitch went pretty well and Sarah seemed to quite like what we produced, no bad bad comments which was good. I am happy with how our bible came out, it was very colorful and visual and I think it gets the message across. I especially liked creating the merchandise page for Space Junk, it really showed how it could be marketed and it was fun.

So there's the bible. I also only just managed to finish my Dyson animation in time for the pitch, but unfortunately didn't get the chance to add sound which i think would of really made it a lot better but i will have to find time to do that this week. I am quite happy with the animation considering I only spent like a day and a half on it. There are a few things that could be tweaked like when he hits his jaw back into place, I think I could exaggerate the anticipation and reaction a bit more, but overall it looks OK. I am happy with how the texturing came out and I used mental rays physical sky which was quick and easy and really made it look nice. Then just created nurbs plane rotated up one edge and gave it a ramp colour, and that was the background done. Just had to make sure I moved the back of the plane far enough so the Space Junk box would cast shadow on it. I also changed the eyes as I was thinking of doing blue lights for the eyes but it looked too evil so went for something a bit cuter , and really happy I did. Then just added a reflective layer on the top, and Georg showed me how to put an environment map in so it would have something reflected off the eyes and it just added that little bit more to it. But the super stressful part was trying to get it rendered on time, as I did kinda leave it a bit late and got kicked out the studio before I could finish, but fortunately had some luck, and got it like a second before our pitch. So just have to remember to leave more time for rendering in the future. But overall I'm really happy with how Dyson came out and I'm glad I did it.

So as you can see I have been really busy Space Junk this week and haven't concentrated much on the Exeter Project, although there's not much that needs to be done in the 3D department. Andy and Adam have finished animating the scenes and Adam and Dan have been fixing the cameras, lighting and rendering out the scenes that they are able to do. Although we were still waiting for shots from the stop-mo team so we could finish lighting the 3D scenes and get them rendered. It was also decided that the explosion would be done in after effects which was quite good for me as I have been so busy with my animation it was nice not having to worry about it. I was allot happier concentrating more on my Dyson animation as I feel I have learnt so much more on him and character animation is an area I really enjoy and want to spend more time on, but I understand that the Exeter project need to be done and will be helping out where I can tomorrow to get it done.

So this week I have been concentrating a bit more on the Exeter project, which is starting to come together really nicely. The 3d team have been working so hard and we seem to be on schedule for everything that we are able to be on schedule for. I am a bit worried about the lighting and camera shots as we aren't able to work on those areas until we get some shots from the stop-mo team. But this week we have finished all the texturing and modelling and have started animation on some of the shots. I have also been able to add the finished assets to the block through and it nice to see how its coming together.




This week I helped out on laying out the uvs for the phoenix, which did set a bit of a challenge as it had been converted to subdivs, which meant I had a a more complex model to lay the uvs out for, but thanks to Georg's help he figured a way in which we could tell the subdiv model to take its uvs from the polygon it was modelled from, which made laying out the uvs a hell of allot easier. (Have no idea if that made any sense, but anyway). So once that was done I passed the phoenix body to Andy who did a great texturing it.




I also had to rig up the phoenix this week, it was just a simple rig using locators and curves, and I have to say that the work I had done on Dyson has really improved my rigging skill and I was able to rig the phoenix quite quickly. The phoenix had been rigged previously by Adam who had done a great job doing it, but because we had to try and transfer the uvs from the textured phoenix to the rigged phoenix, we had a bit of a problem as because the phoenix had already been transferred to a subdiv the transfer attributes tool wouldn't worked. So it was easier just to re rig the phoenix then rather find a way to transfer the uvs. (If that makes sense)





I have also been spending quite a bit of time working on Dyson trying to get him all textured and ready to animate. I have finished laying out his uvs and doing the colour part of the textures but still need to work on creating shaders that look like the kind of metal I want. Working on Dyson has really helped with laying out uvs and i have to understand allot more than I did previously. This week i really need to concentrate on animating Dyson as I really want to get him done for the pitch on Fri. We have almost completed every thing else for the Space junk pitch so I am quite happy with how that is going, but i think this week is going to be quite hectic with trying to get the Dyson animation finished and rendered as well as getting the Animated Exeter project complete so fingers crossed everything will be completed on time.

Hello again, ok so I’ve been quite busy lately trying to get Space Junk completed for the pitch in Dec and working on the animated Exeter project. So I have done a few more concept pieces on my character Dyson, just as little extra to add to the pages of our bible, to add a little colour.

We are kinda at the stage where all the work is done and we just have to put it all together. Justin has almost finished the storyboard so I have started to bring that together for the animatic. It was a bit of a pain as we wanted the animatic to have a bit animation in it, so I had to go through the storyboard and separate it out into different layers so I could animate these layers later in After effects, but I think it will be worth it. I have started to bring it into after effects and add the animation and I think it really livens it up which is good.

I have also been continuing working on my model of Dyson. I have fully rigged him up with facial expressions, and have also done a small piece of animation just to test him out, the animation isnt great but it was just to see if he works. I did have a bit of a problem with the blend shapes. For some reason when I grouped the head and adjusted the vertices to create the blend shape, the blend didn’t completely blend to what the actual blend shape was. So I tried again but using clusters instead and it did the same thing again. But this time I slightly adjusted one of the blend shape clusters and the base face just pop into place, and that seem to fix the problem. Kinda weird, don’t really know what happened there, but it’s all working now so I’m happy. I have also been thinking about creating a 3d model of Dyson using the 3D printer. So I have asked Georg how it works and he said he will find out, so will have to see if I can. But I think it will be quite a

nice think to have for the presentation.

Now with animated Exeter Project, my role is 3D producer. So we have assigned modelling jobs to each of the 3D team, and I have made a block through of the animatic so we can just swop out the assets as they are being built. Last week we have completed all the modelling which I have added to the block through. And this week we will be tackling the texturing and UV layout. I have also looking at some tutorials that Georg had shown me, on creating explosions in Maya, as at the end of the animation there is a phoenix that explodes and fireworks are set off. So will play around with them and see if they are wanted in the animation, aswell as the Fireworks.

Here is the Block Through I created

Here we have Sam's Tower and Jacobs clock face added to the scene

Here is a quick explosion that I have done using one of the tutorials. It isnt complete as I think there are a few things that need to be tweaked but you get the idea.

Another Week

So carrying on with the Creating an animation project, me and Justin are working quite fast and are almost at the stage where we can start putting our bible together. I have done some colour shots of some characters which Justin has created. Here is Dennis and Toastmatic 3K. Just painted some metal textures on in Photoshop so it matches up with Dyson and the planets and I think they look quite nice.






We have written out our character description ect. And we have gone through some ideas for the storyboard. Everything has come together quite well and there doesn’t seem to be anything which we have really struggled on, except for the slogan which we still need to work on. I think the next thing we need to concentrate on is making our presentation a bit more exciting. Andy suggested the idea of creating our bible out of bits of rubbish, which is something that I think we may go along with.

I have also just completed modelling Dyson, in Maya, and he doesn’t look too bad. I think I managed to get looking quite close to my designs, and I’m quite happy with him. I did enjoy modelling him and I hope he is modelled in the correct way. Georg suggested modelling his eye sockets into his face so that way I could follow the contours of his face so later on when I do rig him, it will be easier to create expressions. So I did and I think it will pay off later and already I think it adds just that little bit more character. I decided just to create him to give me something to concentrate on during our Maya sessions and wasn’t too sure how far to take him. Georg convinced me to go ahead and rig him, so that’s the next step. It will give me a chance to practice rigging as I have only rigged a character from scratch once and I think I can improve on it a lot more. Here’s Dyson so far...

Developing an Animation

So I have now started work on developing an animation which is aimed at children between the ages of 8-12 and could be played on a channel like Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network. I am working with Justin on this project. We have decided to do a fast paced children’s series which is kind of a mix between Sponge Bob Square Pants and Futurama. So far we have planned out our general story and some possible ideas for some series. We have five characters which appear in most series. I have started designs on Dyson, is one of the main character. He is an old Robot which has been replaced by newer version and ends up being thrown away. He then ends up on Junk planet which will be our characters main home. The character live in a universe made up of some strange and unusual planets. They are all rejects in some way and their aim is to find a new home as who wants to live in a pile of junk. So they travel to these other planets but never manage to fit in and end up back where they started I have also started designs on these planets which I characters visit on each episode. Justin will be designing the other four characters. So here are some of my designs.

Dyson: I wanted to make Dyson quite a clumsy but high spirited little robot, my first designs looked a bit like a mini Iron giant, but I finally got to something I quite like.

Here is a colur version which I created using Photoshop and a load of metal textures.

Planets: For the planets I took allot of influence from Samarost by Amanita Designs where he uses real photographs to create his planets. So here are my versions:

Junk Planet: Home to our characters and where the universe dumps its rubbish.

Business Planet:

Ape Planet:

Yodel Planet:

Water Planet:

Candy Comet:

I have also started to create Dyson in Maya, as I am trying to see if a can create a 3d model that looks like my original designs. I have taken my designs and scanned them in to use as a reference when modelling in Maya. And so far all seems good but still at an early stage.

The Second Year

So the second year begins, and I need to start getting into my blogs again. The first week has been really great; we have had loads of lessons and have been given a lot more work compared to last year, which is awesome. I enjoyed Mondays session and look forward to start work on developing and designing something to present to the BBC. My first idea is to create a series that is aimed towards older children and can be played on a channel like CBBC, but as I will be working in a group, I will have to see what we come up with as a team.

I also went to the stop motion session on Monday which is not really something I am interested in but thought I may as well see what it’s all about. The lesson to be honest was a bit slow but it was still quite interesting. Trying to animate inanimate objects (like a piece of card), with character was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Our group animation didn't turn out that great. It seems quite muddled and not clear on what the objects characters are. I can definitely understand the aim of the session and it would be quite interesting to do again in the future, to see how I’ve improved. So I will be going again, and really looking forward to creating some armatures of my own.



Next lesson we did was post production on Wednesday. It was interesting to see how many different types of sound are used in film, and the importance of each of them. I think the sound recording project is going to be quite an interesting challenge to do. I really want to push myself to take more interest in the importance of sound and not leave it till the last minute like I tended to do last year. It’s also quite amazing to see how useful sound can be when telling a story, and how it can be used to suggest something is there, rather than actually creating it in the animation. This is such a useful trick that can save so much work.

And then last, but definitely not least was the Maya session we did on Thursday, which I really enjoyed. I am looking forward to learning more advance Maya and maybe having a look at ZBrush. I have been reading a book written by Scott Spencer on using ZBrush and it looks like a really great package for creating intense detail as well as textures. Here is an example of his work, which I think has quite a nice skin texture on which he shows how it is done in the book.





A good tip which I got was to design my characters away from the computer which I don’t always tend to do. I end up adding things and leaving things out. So that’s what I aim to do from now on, as well as being a bit more creative, as I do tend to design things with Maya in mind which can make my designs quite boring.