Tuesday, 30 November 2010

I finished of the animation for shots 53-57 today. Quiet happy with the results and so are the few I have shown it to. Of course I may go back latter to adjust elements if necessary, im just rendering of a test render, and hopefully my tutors will approve.

I studied up on the movement of flies and centipedes before animating them, and got the sharp movements of the fly down as best as I could, yet the centipede I thought would be a extremely hard and time consuming character to animate, with 40 legs to be animated in all. However I had a wee brain wave the other night of attaching the spine segments to a pathway, as said before, and then I only need to deal with the legs. Last night I had the idea of attaching the leg controllers to the spline, therefore matching the movement, and animate in one sequence all the legs moving once, and copy pasting this movement continuously to form a walk with all the legs in one. Then all I had to do was move the leg key frames around to look the most like a walking centipede. In all the biggest and most time consuming aspect was making sure the legs didn’t intersect the ground so much, and I am just doing a test render to make sure when they do it is not to noticeable.

So its Tuesday, and I have pretty much wrapped up on animating 53-57. Next week it is 35, 38-42, where Darren Elm is first seen running after the Audrey Moth. Some acrobatics and much research on Moths is needed. I don’t want the moth to fly to all over the place as Moths do, but slowed down somewhat> To make it seem more menacing. I will work on it anyway,. I have set paths where I want the Moth to fly, and Darren Elm to follow, therefore the jumpy movements of a normal moth would look just strange. But maybe I can work on something in-between a slowed down moth with slightly quirky recognisable movement. The only time I really want the quirky jumpy movement of a normal Moth is when it exits the plant from Darren’s point of view. Its a lot to think about anyway.

Anyway I think its tomorrow off and starting on this next scene the day after…. Unless anything untoward happens with the render test of 53-57.

Monday, 29 November 2010

A very brief update today. Happily I am still staying on schedule! I spent today working on the last sequence of shots 53-57, the 3 insects. So far I have blocked out all the insects and animated the background fly. Tomorrow I will work on the front one and begin the arduous task of animating the centipede. I linked the spine controls of the centipede to a pathway, which has made it much easier to animate the main body, with only the 100 legs to worry about. But I have about 3 days now to animate the legs, and adjust the lighting within the cave> Currently I am using 4 lights inside the cave, 3 to light each character separately, and although it gives more control the difference in lighting between character is noticeable, so I am either going to go down to 2 lights (one for Darren’s monologue at the beginning and one to light all the characters through the rest of the scene) OR adjust the levels of the lights so they match.

Oh I also changed the cameras so the main section is just one long camera move rather than 4 cuts. It works a lot better, shows more of the character interaction, and is a lot less jarring.

Here is a test render from checking if the Helmet works when placing it on his head

Sunday, 28 November 2010 (after some sleep, breakfast, etc)

Working on Ian Elm and George today. It’s a little quicker given the practise with Darren first, and I have been using extensively the video recorded clips from the voice recording sessions to help with the Lip Sync. I also recorded myself acting out all the scenes, which helped with the overall poses and facial animation. Initially I had planed to just use the voice acting session video data as the sole information for the lip sync, but a method of checking the mirror, the voice actor data and checking video of myself acting out the scene all helped in producing the finished sequence.

I am hoping over time I may decide to go back over the scenes when I have learnt more, but at the moment I am happy with the results of the last week.

I decided to animate all the scene, even off camera, just in case I decided to change any camera angles or the timing of the cameras latter. This also, I believe, gives better interaction between the characters and of course is more practise for myself!


Anyway an early night for a change, and tomorrow blocking out and animating the flies, with 3 days left for the dreaded centipede (I am thinking of creating a path for the centipede, and therefore really only need to animate all 100 legs by hand).

Sunday, 28 November 2010

I have been working hard on the same sequence (shots 53-57) for the last few days now. I am hoping to wrap up the character interaction by tomorrow and get to work for the next four days on the flies and centipede. Its been tough going trying to get the right action and timing. I am still not one hundred percent sure of using a helmet to show his “warrior” status in the tribe, and perhaps putting his helmet on detracts from the actual animation. Plus with the timing of the short its difficult to have him putting his helmet on in such a short amount of time.

The lip-sync is another problem that I think will grow easier over time. But for now its taken all day to do the eye animation and the lip-sync for one character, with two more needing the lip-sync created tomorrow. It’s a good experience and great when it all comes together. The UI I created is working well, and I am able to add in curves and Bezier if necessary by editing the actual ui icons rather than the morphs that are linked to them by the reactor manger.

I am just trying to add some emotion to the characters, but without eyebrows (although the controls are there they simply move the skin above the eyes) actual movement of the eyebrow controls just looks weird, and all emotion is best expressed with the mouth and eyes.
Anyway I am going to continue this tonight until Darren’s finished and move on to Ian and George Elm tomorrow.

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

After some feedback from the tutors I reworked the bike entry so that he stops to take note of the sign, and then over the last few days I have been working on shots 53-57, in the Animatic they are the night scenes on the plant. I choose for the second sequence to animate one of the hardest shots, with a centipede climbing over a branch and a conversation with the three Elmies huddled in a crack in the plant. It’s hard going. Trying to get the right poses for the character with the timing is taking much longer than when I created the George short animation, but its slowly coming together. I am rather worried about my time keeping, staying on track with the schedule, its taking twice as long as I had hoped at present, but I had assumed from the George animation how long it would take, not counting I was animated more than one character. Hopefully over time it will become more second nature as I learn and progress through this animation. Also the lighting will need to be adjusted around Darren Elm, although at the start I like him coming in from shadow, I would prefer if he had some light on his whole body latter in the sequence. The best way I can see of accomplishing both in one is to use a spot light shining from an angle, rather than the omni with a fall off that I am using at present. Anyway I will leave that until the animation for this sequence is finished.

Saturday, 20 November 2010

Just a brief update. I continued animating the bike today, adding in some subtle movements that I noticed when taking reference of myself riding a bike. Also reworking the grab motion of Audrey as she takes of the Staff wanted sign. There is a little problem with the animation in which Darren’s shirt is blue before he starts working at the office, so I quickly altered the texture to be black just for consistency. Anyway I am re rendering of the first scene, and will upload it to youtube tomorrow so the tutor can see it straight away. I am reluctant on putting unfinished work up, but it’s the best method at getting direct feedback sooner rather than latter. I am learning a lot, especially on using the curve editor to tweak the movements, and with that in mind I think I will wait till near the end to render of the animation. So it gives me the opportunity to rework scenes latter on.

Friday, 19 November 2010

I began reworking the last shot today with some suggestions by my tutor. Mainly looking at Darren riding in on his bike from the left, to give more drama and take note of him noticing the sign. It seemed simple enough but I ran into some major problems with how the bike is rigged, with the wheels turning in the wrong direction if Darren makes a u turn, which he would do when parking. The only alternative after many woes was to look into placing it on a path. Seemingly simpler however I believed that this would not allow nice curves in the speed of the bike. Yet as it turns out adding a Bezier curve to the percentage of the path instead of the linear solves the problem.

http://forums.creativecow.net/archivethread/18/725524

So I don’t forget, the wire parameters for the wheel rotation is (830.671*Percent)/7. (length of line*percentage) radius of wheel

http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/13/ENU/Autodesk%203ds%20Max%202011%20Tutorials/index.html?url=./files/WS1a9193826455f5ff-3859b43c1215f53d0f3-7091.htm,topicNumber=d0e12397

I also had the peddles rigged up but decided to do these by hand for more control of the movements. Tomorrow i will record some reference on a exercise bike that I can use for the arms, spine and head movement. Particularly how the body moves when steering and peddling.



I decided to remove all smoke from the smoke stacks, and use particle to animate the smoke. However my version of particle combust wont work with Mental ray, so I have decided to leave the smoke out for now, and latter put it in in post if time/necessity requires. It does give the place a more dismal look with the smoke effects, but the stack painted on smoke that was stuck onto the stack detracts from the scene and is instantly noticeable. As a thought I could always create a smoke effect in 3D and use it as a layer and add it on the stack for the end and start sequence. That would probably be the easiest with just the camera tracking to work out. Oh I also made sure the actual building layer of the sky map was also tillable.



Anyhow a highly productive day. Hit a few hurdles but got over a few more.

Wednesday, 17 November 2010

I began working on shots 53-57 today (the night scene in the plant with the Elmys). I started by setting each character into the position in that scene and testing the lighting, and reworking it so its just as I had envisioned. Lighting plays a key role in this scene with Darren’s Elmy coming out of the darkness, a conversation in a dimly lit cave, and the centipede appearing after its silhouette at the end. To be frank though after doing some test renders I am very unhappy with the look of the centipede on the plant, and may decided to take it out if after animating and final lighting setup it still doesn’t gel well. I can always add another fly instead on that branch, but I prefer the less generic centipede than another fly.

Anyhow here’s some test lighting renders for the night scene. Tomorrow I will block out the poses and begin tweaking the poses. Then spend the next few days working on the facial animation. Dependent I suppose if I need to rework any of the last shots after my tutors have seen.

Tuesday, 16 November 2010

I have completed shots 1 – 2 and 132, as described in the previous post, and added more lights for the characters and added the weather effects of the clouds slowly moving across. The clouds give it a nice feel, and I am tempted to take out the smoke from the stacks and animate this also, perhaps as a png image sequence, rather than particle systems that would take longer to render and be less effect. But I will leave it until all the animation is finished and I can go back if necessary.

The first sequence of animation is really only short, although 40 seconds in all it only features Audrey taking out the card briefly and Darren riding on his bike, which was all rigged up anyway to ride, so it was just a case of moving him forward. It’s a good start anyway.

I began really relying on the curve editor through this first animated sequence. Animated a short walk cycle for Audrey, and generally learnt how to get over quiet a few hurdles, the last of which was animating the weather effects. I think for the final scene where Darren rides of on his bike with the Elmies in tow, I will use this scene and animated Darren in it, saving having to rework the weather effects and keeping the motion of the weather consistent from beginning to end.

Currently I am cleaning up my hard discs for more space, taking out unnecessary incrementally saved backups. So I have enough room on my hard discs for the rest of the animation.
Next step is begin working on shots 53-57, a 20 second two week sprint which is the night scene in the animation. So it will be the first actual lip-sync, and the rather worryingly hard to animate centipede! I plan on starting this tomorrow, rather than next week to try and get a bit ahead. I will hopefully spend a week animating the conversation, and another week on the outer shot with the insects.

I am currently rendering of the animation half size to show the tutors on Friday, and if approved I will render it off full size at 1920.
I am a little apprehensive about posting online each scene as it is produced, and prefer to keep the work off youtube until its completed, so unfortunately throughout the animation I wont be posting little snippets of animation online, just still image renders.

Here’s the same render as the previous post, only with the lighting adjusted.

Thursday, 11 November 2010

I spent the last few days from blocking to pretty much the final animation of the first 2 shots of the animation. From the zoom in where Darren rides in and when Audrey walks up and take off the sign.

I ran into a few problems with the sims on the belly and chest, since the chest would almost implode when walking forward, however taking down the effects on the Y and X resolved the issue, allowing for some movement in the Z. Really I wish I had noticed it sooner, since I can now edit each of the sims again for the characters taking into account the effects in the XYZ. To be honest the effect is so subtle I doubt it will be noticed.

Animation wise I was a little daunted by the first few shots, and took a lot of reference of someone walking and taking hold of the card for the little nuances of movement that I added. It really helped anyway bring the first scene to life.

I am going to create the end shot of Audrey putting the card back to advertise for more staff right after the animation I have already done, so it will be just one big long render. I might start rendering it off pretty soon, so I can judge how the final sequences will looks like and give me chance to go back if necessary (also taking of some of the rendering from the 3 months I have set aside for rendering at the end), but for now I will just use preview animations to show the tutors.

Tomorrow after working on the final shot I will probably work on lighting Darren and Audrey. Although I have already lit the backgrounds its necessary to add some nice highlights and fill lights to the character and give the tutors something to reference when looking at the preview animations.

This first 38 seconds should have taken 2 weeks but at the moment it looks like I should have it done by tomorrow (1week), however I think there will be a lot of tweaking after!
I am also still having some problems rendering say Darren’s hair, as there is not enough memory to render of a frame with that size texture (2048), but since the rendering will take place on my other computer, I think it should be ok, but will take a few test renders over the next few days using that computer to see if the memory will be adequate. I don’t think it will effect render times its just a memory problem with my old computer.
Anyway here’s a render from the last few days work.

Monday, 08 November 2010

First day of animation today. I worked out a schedule for the next nine month sprint, and began the blocking of the first shot today. The first shot I am working on is the beginning and ending, where the camera zooms in to the window, and Audrey takes the card out of the window, and Darren riding in on his bike. The blocking is going ok, however some technical problems with his bike. Mainly the chain wouldnt stay on the chain when rotating, and I couldn’t resolve the problem quickly so decided to leave it and just have the chain not moving. The bike is so far away it wont hopefully be noticeable anyway.
Things are going pretty ok with the blocking out, but I lack a lot of confidence in my animation work, since I have not done a lot of animation to begin with, and the first shot requiring a walk and interaction. Funnily enough it still is one of the easiest with many lip-synced scenarios to tackle. Ah have I given myself to much!!! Perhaps over confident in my 3D skills has lead me to trip up! will see. For the beginning and end shot I have two weeks anyway, so going to leave it for tonight and beginning again tomorrow. Trying to get the timing right when blocking without going into to much detail is rather hard!!!

Tuesday, 02 November 2010

Here are a few more images of the factory I rendered today to add to the 3D image gallery.

Tuesday, 02 November 2010

I finished all the scenes today, lightened and added placeholder objects in place of characters with the camera movements. I think I will celebrate tomorrow, since that’s the end of the object/scene/character sprint, and finally I can start the actual animating!!! There still will need some lighting changed and key lights added to the characters after the animation is completed on each section, but this pretty much wraps up all I can do before animating with all the scene backgrounds lit.
I also decided the website needed a change, and rendered of imagery for the front page and the character profiles. It seemed sensible that the piece is a CG piece, and I am advertising it on the site as a 2D piece from the onset. So now the first thing people will see is it’s a 3D animated short. All good.

Tomorrow I will just upload some imagery for the galleries, then have a day off before beginning planning what shots I will do over the next nine months.

Anyhow renders of the final scenes.