AnimationAdventures

Just a little ol' art student trying to get my work noticed. My name is Elle, and I'm 19. I am currently studying a Bachelor of 3D Art and Animation at Enmore Design Centre, Sydney. Here you will find my work, class notes and inspirations. Subjects: Semester 1, Year 1. Visual Arts Digital Processes Screen Studies 3D Artistry Semester 2, Year 1. Modelling Design and Visual Thinking Screen Pre-Visualisation and Editing. Cameras and Lighting Semester 1, Year 2. Texturing For 3D 3D Rigging Studio 1 Animation Studio 1 Rendering Studio 1 Semester 2, Year 2. Dynamics VFX 1 Design Professional Practice Programming 1 Data Capture & Compositing

[nick-avallone]

[landskype]

13540023 by Kellen Mohr on Flickr.

[intothegreatunknown]

[tylerthelatteboy-deactivated202]

do you remember the first time you were called annoying? how your breath stopped short in your chest the way the light drained from your eyes, though you knew your cheeks were ablaze the way your throat tightened as you tried to form an argument that got lost on your tongue. your eyes never left the floor that day. you were 13. you’re 20 now, and i still see the light fade from your eyes when you talk about your interests for “too long,” apologies littering every other sentence, words trailing off a cliff you haven’t jumped from in 7 years. i could listen to you forever, though i know speaking for more than 3 uninterrupted minutes makes you anxious. all i want you to know is that you deserve to be heard for 3 minutes for 10 minutes for 2 hours forever. there will be people who cannot handle your grace, your beauty, your wisdom, your heart; mostly because they can’t handle their own. but you will never be and have never been “too much.”

Tyler Ford (via winterkristall)

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Dynamics VFX Assessment.

To complete the assessment.. 

I imported everything I had into Nuke and created a bash comp - integrating all the different pieces together. 

I only ended up changing a few things to change the overall look in my composite, them being the timing slightly (using a retime) to get them to appear and disappear when needed and also a translate node.  I don't know why but my particle systems were a little off when putting them together and didn't fit in with the ufo opening exactly, but once I did this it blended together nicely. 

I also incorporated my heat plumes, which I rendered out separately (back and front) and then put them together. I had a little trouble with getting these working and had to render them out multiple times and refer to the class example we did. But in the end, I got them working the way I wanted them to and was happy with the result. 

With the mannequin, I ended up rendering that in with the background (maybe this was why the particle system was a bit off centre, I don't know why). But found this worked well for me because I tried doing it separately, and when I did the mannequin wasn't integrating with the background (getting sucked up and disappearing into the ufo). Anyway, I completed this and was happy with the result. :) 

Final file is too big to upload to the blog, but you can see it in my submissions drive :) 

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Dynamics VFX Assessment.

For the second part of my assessment, I looked at the feedback given by the client and pretty much just recreated the particle system in my new scene, changing a few things along the way. 

Firstly I created the same kind of look as the first scene, using toon shapes again. Only this time I used a cylinder shape instead of a cone shape - following the clients feedback from my first submission. 

Other than that, the only thing I really changed was the timing and the colour. I made it so that there could be two rings descending from the ufo at the same time - rather than just one. And also made the colour of one of the rings slightly lighter than the other. 

I felt I could do this to add more variance, and only because the systems together wouldn't look too over the top due to the now stationary coreBeam. I was really happy with this look overall and stuck to what the client wanted so hopefully they're happy too ! 

For the third particle system, I did the same thing: Looked at what the client wanted changed and did that. Duh.  So for this, instead of having the particle system rotate in different directions over the time, I made them rotate just the one way. This also made the tractorBeam less complex (another reason as to why I changed the colour up a bit on the system written about above). I copied over most of the values of the last system I made in the first scene as I was quite happy with how this turned out and the client didn't say anything about changing it, so hopefully they were happy with it as well. 

I also changed the shape of this particle system so it integrated nicely with the other three, now that they were the cylinder instead of the cone / pyramid shape. I felt that this gave the tractorBeam a lot more variation compared to the previous scene, and was happy with how it turned out. 

To complete the scene, I rendered out the particles in different layers so that I could have some rendering at uni and others rendering at home so it could be done quicker and then I'd have more time to play around in Nuke - editing them slightly so I was happy with them. 

Overall, I was quite happy with the final output of my particle systems and felt I adhered to the brief and clients feedback as much as I could. 

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Dynamics VFX Assessment.

To begin working on completing the second part of the assessment, I've re created the scene and written down all the main values and edits on the emitters so I can recreate them in the new scene. I wanted to completely start from scratch, so that none of the issues that were arising in the first assessment would do so again. 

I just took into account the things I needed to change and revised the way I built up my systems. 

Firstly I did the coreBeam.  For the coreBeam, I filled a cylinder full of particles (balls) and worked with nDynamics. I found that this approach was good and did what I wanted it to do in the first scene, so therefore kept it going throughout the assignment. I just simply changed the shape of it, by creating a cylinder geo the correct size and filled it with the particles. I mucked around with the particle size, the opacity, colour, count and start frames for quite a while, trying to get my clients desired look. 

I also added a turbulence field to add a randomness to the appearance and makeup of the particles in the filled object. Otherwise they were extremely uniform and quite frankly just looked ridiculous. This is where I played around with the start frames and things to get the system to look the way I wanted it to by the time it emitted down from the ufo. 

I tried making the particle system slowly descend from the source of the ufo, although had difficulty in doing so. I decided to make this easier I could just edit it in Nuke afterwards. 

After rendering out my coreBeam the first time, I had a lot of trouble trying to get it to actually move the way it was doing so in the scene. The bulkiness of the scene was getting too much and the computer couldn't deal with it - so I just decided to playblast until I could get something useful and interesting.  After it's first render, the coreBeam was flicking rather than moving slowly (effects of the turbulence beam) which was annoying the hell out of me because I couldn't actually get it to do it the way I wanted. I tried using mental ray and maya software to do so, and mental ray was just a joke. It took so so long and the result wasn't even worth it.

I really liked the look of the beam while it was stationary and thought that maybe I could use that without it moving. I revised my work and looked over my past tractor beam and came to the conclusion that I didn't really like how all of the beams were constantly moving - it was almost too much for the scene and too sickening for the viewers eye. That's when I decided to just render out the system at a stationary position and up the particle count even more to make it look like a ray coming down from the ufo. 

I was happy with this by the end and transferred it to Nuke to make sure it fit into the scene correctly. 

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Dynamics VFX Assignment.

With getting my grading rubric back, I've revised a lot of things that I want to improve before I submit my final assessment. 

One thing I have done, is edited and expanded more so on my own references collected throughout the semester. Here you can find the same process taken, as what I did with Chris' references - taking notes and recording them which I can then later refer to when doing my assignment. I thought this would further help me as I found my notes on Chris' extremely helpful when trying to fill the clients brief.

I can see where my work needs improvement now and am going to actively keep trying new approaches to achieve what my clients feedback is. 

What the client said and what I need to improve:

- Rotate vertical beams in one direction.

- Shape of the UFO. Needs to be much more narrower (more cylinder than cone shaped).

- Bulk up the particle count in the pyramid (or cylinder shaped core beam). 

- Make sure the tractor beam only appears when the hatch opens and disappears when it closes. 

Notes from Chris:

- Remake scene (really broken).

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Dynamics - Rag Doll Effect. Due 05.11.2014

Dynamics – Rag Doll Effect

As part of the Assessment for this subject you are required to add a dynamic simulation of a mannequin as it gets lifted into the UFO (aka rag doll effect). This technique will not be taught in class as you are required to create this work as a research task. Once you have found a technique that allows you to dynamically lift the mannequin into the UFO, you will then create a tutorial on your blog that goes through the workflow you used to create the dynamic mannequin. This task is due at the start of your Dynamics and Visual Effects class in Week 13. Work that is handed in after the due date will have marks deducted according to the rubric for Assessment 3 as found in Appendix1.

[iyimibole]

[like-drizzle-and-hurricanes]

How

[animation-adventures]

How you ask?!  A not so little program called Nuke. /compositinglyf

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Data Capture and Compositing. 16.10.2014

Erics Class. 

- Review on colourLookup table (setting multiple keys on the one master curve) - Colour Correct (changing the final look of the colour change.)

Main nodes to play with:  - Hue correct - Colour correct - Grade - Colour lookup

Beauty pass: camera movements Depth pass: z depth, foreground / background. Camera effects. Post production.  Motion pass: Data for 2D, 3D motion blur, stored in channels and rendered.  UV: Length and height.  Element: Something you can render off. 

Can combine all in a single stream, using a copy node, shuffle node and shuffle copy node. 

Shuffle: single input. Works with two layers at once. Eg: output the rgba of the depth value into the z channel. 

Copy: B stream (all data together) - Also known as the core / primary stream.  A stream (added items) - Things that are added into the scene. 

Shuffle copy: Can copy from one stream over to another. (number 2 is the primary stream). This is essentially a copy node AND a shuffle node in the one node. 

So.. In the shuffle / copy - or shuffle node..

You have :  INPUT 1.             INPUT 2.                     OUTPUT 1

INPUT 1.             INPUT 2.                     OUTPUT 2

Channel merge: In the A stream - grab one element and in the B channel / stream grab another and then you're able to output a completely different channel.  Eg: - Raw = luminosity  - Level = pure RGB hue - Result = raw * level - Add = additional colour attribute on architectural shader (incandescence).

First we have the 'simple' variant, which is just a sum of the various result parameters of each pass. This version allows only minor post production changes to the overall balance between materials.  It does have the advantage of not needing as many files, as well as working reasonably well in non-floating-point compositing. File size is therefore less of an issue. 

This is called the result equation: 

Beauty = diffuse_result + indirect_result + spec_result + refl_result + refr_result + tran_result + add_result

Then we have the more 'complex' variant, which uses the various raw and level outputs available allowing much greater control in post production.  Note that the raw outputs need to be stored and composited in a floating point format in order to maintain the accuracy of their data. The level outputs always stay in a 0.0-1.0 range and do not require floating point storage. 

This is called the breakdown equation: 

Beauty = diffuse_level * (diffuse_raw + (indirect_raw * ao_raw)) +  spec_level * spec_raw + refl_level * refl_raw + refr_level * refr_raw + tran_level * tran_raw + add result

The third variant is a combination of the other two equations. This is less complex to set up but still gives the compositor access to important and often utilized raw and level outputs. In particular it will give you correct output for the compositing of ambient occlusion and indirect lighting as well as straight forward colour correction control. 

This is called the hybrid equation: 

Beauty = diffuse_level * (diffuse_raw + (indirect_raw * ao_raw)) +  spec_result + refl_ result + refr_result + tran_result + add_result

Emilianos class: 

Keying using just one node. (the keylight)

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Dynamics VFX. 15.10.2014

Bullet. 

Soft Bodies. 

Allows us to deform the shape of a piece of geometry by altering the position of vertices in the geometry.  - Calculates collisions on vertex level.  - Deforms based on collision.  - Flags, table cloths, sheets, pillows. 

Good idea to have shapes visible in the outliner. (faster selection of nodes)

Bullet solver node = controls how the simulation behaves.  Bullet soft body shape = controls how the soft body behaves in the simulation.

Collider shape = make sure it closely matches the shape you're making the collision happen with. 

Soft collision = allows the solver to detect when different parts of itself collide and prevents that geometry from totally collapsing on itself.

Max number interations = make it lower to get a more stable simulation where it won't freak out. 

Up the hz to get more calculations within the simulation - which allows it to be less buggy. 

Create a soft body anchor:  Eg: making a flag - to make parts of the soft body attached to something eg: a pole that the flag holds onto. Use locators and use that as the anchor. 

Aerodynamics = for objects that have air / space trapped inside them. 

Drag = similar to dampening. Pulls the fabric / geo away from the anchor. 

Making a flag:

-Make plane and flag pole.  - Up the subdivision - Create plane as a soft body.  - Create soft body anchor points.  - Put wind magnitude = 15.000. Or 'create new expression'.  bulletSolverShape1.windMagnitude = rand(10,20); - Put drag at 1.000 and lift at 5.000.  - Play with the soft body properties and turn on generate bend constraints and self collisions.  - Up the mass to 30.000.  - In expression, bulletSolverShape1.windDirectionX = noise (time*3)*0.5); - Create expression for drag and possibly lift.  bulletSoftBodyShape1.drag = rand(0.02, 1.5) bulletSoftBodyShape1.lift = rand(2,8);

Open gremlin animBake:

- Create another ground plane.  Change all the subdivisions.  - Create a proxy geo for the foot by making the foot 'live' and using the modelling tool kit.  - Create a locator and place it on the ball joint of the foot.  - Parent the new proxy geo to the locator.  - Make the proxy geo an active rigid body and make sure the body type is kinematic.  - Make the collider shape type to hull and click refit.  - Parent constrain the ball_joint to the locator on each foot.  - Make the ground a 'soft body' and it should make steps on the plane as it runs acorss.  - Under the soft body properties:  Linear shift : 0.050.  Friction : 1.000.  Dampening : 0.300.  Mass : 100.000. 

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Programming Studio 1. 14.10.2014

Global Procs.  - Can be seen anywhere.  - Can be stored on hard disk (script directory). Done simply by selecting the whole script and save it in the script folder / directory. This saves it to maya's scripts so now you don't ever have to create the script again. You'll just have to run it (do this by typing the name of the script into the mel bar at the bottom eg: rapidRename)

Rename exercise. (take snippet of)

SymbolButton.  - Allows us to use an image as a button (gifs / pngs).

GridLayout.  - Determines the number of columns and cellWidthHeight.

Also, began creating my script for programming - sent email to Vince and waiting to hear back for next weeks class.

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Data Capture and Compositing. 09.10.2014

Eric's Class: 

Working on grades. - White point.  - Black point.  Sampling one image and taking its look to another by making it a target image.

Colour Lookup.  - LUT.  - Sample a piece of the image and look at the lookup table. The colour curves: darker = closer together, lighter = further apart.  - Insert control points ALT + CTRL + LMB. You will only be able to move the points vertically unless holding CTRL.  - Can select source and target. So, select sample of what needs to be changed (source) and it's target (what it'll change to). So, instead of finding the black point and white point, gain and lift - we use the source and target to find the midtones in just one sample. It's more initiative and less mechanical. Grade is used for same tonal values while colour lookup is more for lighter or darker pictures that have a bunch of different colours. 

Emiliano's Class:  Week 9 Exam. 

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Programming Studio 1. 07.10.2014

Global Procs:  - Can be seen anywhere  - Can be stored on your hard disk (in the script directory). This saves it to Maya's scripts so now you don't ever have to create the script again, all you have to do is run it - type the name of the script, eg: rapidRename into the Mel bar at the bottom. 

Symbol Button: Allows us to use an image as a button (gifs and pngs work well) :) 

Grid layout: Determines the number of columns and the cellWidthHeight

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Dynamics VFX Assessment.

More troubleshooting...

When piecing every thing together, I also found that when saving and re opening files, the ufo was disappearing. I ended up having to save the file as a binary file, otherwise it would just completely disappear from the scene each time I opened it and would therefore have to re import it. :( 

Also..

When I was rendering out my assessment, I had to do each particle system separately and then compile them all together using Nuke. This is why my final .mov looks unfinished and is overlapping at the source of the tractor. 

I need to chat with Chris about these issues I've been having as I really can't continue on with the assignment with these troubles occurring in Maya.

[animation-adventures]

Subject: Dynamics VFX Assessment.

Before beginning my assignment, I've watched Chris' videos and have taken notes on what he thinks of each reference image and recorded them here.

WHAT THE CLIENT LIKES:

1. Camera angle. 2. More energy in the center illustrated by the 'hot' colour. 3. Colours of these palettes.  4. The non-threatening varience in blue. Darker, less energy on the outer part. 5. Circular form shown looking up into the cone. 6. Cloud like variance / moving like a cloud.

1. People within the 'cone' or 'volume'. 2. Feelings of curiosity, wonder, amazement.

1. Variance within the cones / volumes of light. Lighter towards the edges and further away. More energy towards the middle of the rays. 2. Consistent non-threatening colours paired with the shadowing from the main light source.   3. Sense of motion in all the beams.  4. Feeling of energy conveyed through the light source.  5. Visual representation. Other things / objects floating upwards enhancing this. 

1. Variance in volume (the 4 rays) - Could possibly move?

1. Randomness in shapes coming off.  2. Brightness of light source fading as it gets further away. 

1. In motion - even though the image is still, it still looks like it's moving.  2. Whispy trails coming off the main beams. Trailing behind, as though the main beams are travelling away from the source. Almost cloudy vapor like - drifting off.  3. Colour - the same blue palette, non-threatening.  4. Not enough whispyness, or cone shaped enough.

1. Gentle misty vapor.

1. Spread becomes less and less noticeable until it disappears completely.  2. Opacity and how it fades slowly from the main part to the less effected areas.  3. The texture, ribbons within the moving light. Creates a more dynamic, and interesting flow to the movement.  4. Variety in the shape. 

1. Likes how it is layered. Could use a main cone combined with another particle system that creates the sense of whispyness we're after on a large scale.  2. How it scatters / dissipates.  3. Thicker to thinner. Maybe randomize these shapes coming off using an instancer. 

1. Darker / Lighter tones (higher contrast).  2. Thicker, more variance in the mist.  3. Smoke / mist / vapor.  4. Noise as it comes down away from the source and fades out. Note the emptiness in between the main rays as well. 

1. The fine, tiny detail - high particle counts.  2. Hot colour in the main source then slowly gets cooler as it moves away.  3. Variance in shapes with energy within them.