BA1B-Computer-Graphics

BA1B Computer Graphics (Maya) Project for Animation at Norwich University of the Arts

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CG Final Render

In a session with Jon we learned how to set up and Batch Render out animations correctly in Maya. After managing some settings the rendering process took about two hours to complete a flowing image sequence, which was imported into Adobe After Effects at 25fps to get the result you see here. 

I also edited the scene slightly in after effects, adjusting brightness and contrast and using other colour correction tools to light up certain assets that came out much darker than intended at certain times in shot (such as the character rig at the beginning of the animation). I really like the dynamic lighting achieved by the directional and spotlight sources, but am also slightly irritated by some aspects that I couldn’t correct - such as the character’s red eyes. 

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Experimentation Reel Titlecard

This is my Titlecard for my experimentation reel, I will be using something similar for my showreel, it makes use of my own handwriting, my signature, the date it was made, my student number, and a credit to the source of the music used (see previous post). You can also see in the background, a low opacity screenshot from Maya of my “mystery box” animation scene.

I will be unable to post my finished experimentation reel on this blog as it is too large of a file and I have exceeded my usage amount this week for Vimeo, however, I will be of course be submitting it, and almost all of the contents of it have been posted to this blog already!

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Bensound's royalty free music: World / Others.

The Music I have chosen to use for my Experimentation Reel - “The Elevator Bossa Nova” from Royalty Free Music site “Bensound.com”

We do not have to use music in our experimentation reels, but as our CG project is largely, if not all mute, I thought that some chilled out sounds would certainly help to make it that bit more interesting and fun!

I will be making sure to credit the track and source of the music on the title card of the reel!

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Final CG Animation Playblast

Though I may fully render it if I have time, this is looking to be my final animation for submission, which I am relatively happy with. The short animation shows some element of character and expression with some decent timing and original textures. 

There are a few sections that certainly could use work, such as the walk, which still looks fairly unnatural, and some camera angles would definitely help to spice up an the animation sequence, particularly at the moment of shock when the character looks inside the box. But overall, I’m pleased with the progress I have made with 3D animation, and have learned a lot about modelling, texturing, lighting, animating and rendering within software like Maya - all areas I knew almost nothing about to begin with!

I will soon be making an experimentation reel to demonstrate all that I have made in development towards this animation, by which point I will be very nearly ready to submit this project!

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Reaction - Fall & Turn

From a different perspective we see the expressive reaction to the mystery box here once more, and get a subtle feel for the impact on the landing of the fall back.

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Screenshots from my timeline and Render window

I’m not sure whether I want to just playblast or fully render my animation yet, as I know rendering takes longer (as it is a sequence of images) but looks more professional. Even so I have made sure that both work, and have frequently tested frames of the animation in the render window (seen in the first photo) in order to ensure that they are lighted properly. 

In the timeline of the image below, you can see red dashes for all the frames of all of the highlighted rig controllers, taken in a section during the walk segment. It has taken a number of frames and several hours to get where I am now, but I am getting ever closer to finishing off this task and creating something I am genuinely happy with, especially since I have never used 3D software before this project. 

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CG_Reaction_03

These videos that I have posted to my vimeo demonstrate the development process towards finishing off the “reaction” segment for my final animations. The character jumps back and curls up similarly to Aaron’s reference performance, and I feel as though the action works well, with a good change in expression and a nice feel of impact when the character hits the ground!

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CG_Reaction_02

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CG_Reaction_01

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Improved Walk Pass

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First Walk Pass for my Final Animation

This is my first try at the walk section for my final “mystery box” animation, I did this with very little help or reference and the resulted could certainly use improving.

Helen Schroeder and Helen Piercy both looked the animation and agreed that there was too much “sliding” and not enough dynamics, sometimes the character moved unnaturally as a result of perhaps moving the global rig controller at times where a full step was not happening. Jon helped me to correct this by ensuring that each step was consistent and that the global controller only moved WITH these, which should appropriately get rid of the “sliding” effect. The way he did this was by hiding the scene, using the space-bar to change the preview to a side view, and using a simple cube as reference for the spacing/timing between each step and how the global controller should move. 

In this walk I wanted to make the rig looked scared and hesitant, as a result the knees are nearly always bent and thus the highs and lows are not very visible - though they could certainly use a little bit more emphasis. 

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The Result of the “Fright Animation Test”, textured with my new Jen texture and placed into scene for the beginnings of my full animation...

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Fright - Maya Animation Test

In a scene where I wanted the character to suddenly jump at a sight or sound during their walk (As in Aaron’s reference footage performance), I began to test the capabilities of animating with these rigs in Maya. I’m very pleased with the dynamics of the animation test, demonstrating use of ease in and ease out as well as shifts in the facial controllers that accentuate the action itself.

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Textures used in the new Box Scene

these textures, take from online, cover all grounds of the new box scene, from the walls and floor to the door, box and rug. Some of these also likely exist in the media shared texture library. Also, almost all of these are used as “lamberts”, and are lighted individually using ambient lighting from a directional influence and a spotlight light source centred on the box.

The texture for the doorway was the hardest to get right, as I had to individually edit the UV Mapping so that it only displayed the actual door from the source image on the front face of the model. The resulting texture looked like this, as I only really needed the texture on the front face:

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New Mystery Box Scene

This is the new scene that I have built and textured myself, it shows an alternative to the box stage provided to us by the lecturers as I felt that this was too bland for my liking and wanted to create something original and more personal. It uses simple planes and polygons with textures I found online to give the impression of a dark room in a haunted house, and as you will see from this photo, many sections are left spaced out or empty, but look fine in camera due to the angle and resulting forced perspective...

^ I also made the whole scene into it’s own layer separate from the Jen rig (which I placed in scene and thus had to scale the scene up to fit with, as she is huge!). This separate layer is adjusted so that is is not selectable and remains static, therefore making the animation process easier as I do not have to worry about accidentally clicking walls or the floor instead of rig controllers!

Note that the playblast on this post was taken before I put the door and rig into scene.

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“Scared” Animation Blocking - Blocking the key poses for the animation

Over the Easter Break this is what I worked on. Using my new rextextured Jen Rig as well as the sketches I had made for the key poses, I began to generate a blocking sequence that would demonstrate these poses ON the character and how they fit together. I feel as though these work together well, and with some added substance (such as a jump when she is frightened during the walk sequence at the beginning, as well as blinking etc) should make for a convincing animation that will be a great start into my understanding of 3D!

Unintentionally the hand does spline a little, and this was a mistake I wasn’t sure how to fix, as it seemingly was not responding when I edited the animation settings to stepped again and again. However I don’t consider this too much of an issue, as this is only a test, and playing with the potentials of the rig controllers to get some interesting poses (such as the scared jump back) was very exciting, especially in relation to the reference footage I had also been paying attention to throughout.

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Jen 2 - After the Retexturing