Year 3 @crossartanistudio - Tumblr Blog

Conclusion

There were little bits of the cat which I did not get around to animating - the collar and the bow. Mostly I did not touch the collar as it was underneath and not often seen and I had little time left.

I did not animate the bow because of the above. The sides were attached - unevenly at that - at the points where I would animate them.

The above is as far as I could lift the bows on either side without any weird effects, so it was quite limited. I could have done this, but with the exaggerated jumps and such of the cat, I think it would have looked underwhelming.

Regardless, in my ILP I said I would animate the cat and the item it chases, not ‘the cat, its accessories, and the item it chases.’ I do feel that the animation worked out quite well and pushed my limits to do better, as I could not have done something like before, but it could always be better. I feel it gave me a push to be more interested in 3D animation in general. The rendered version is a massive disappointment to me, and perhaps it is my fault for not communicating more, but I felt so put down that I did not want to communicate anymore after submitting my work to be dealt with, and I feel my thoughts would have been dismissed with more ‘don’t tell me how to do my own job role’ again. It is either that, or the ending was deliberately tampered with to make it appear as if nothing happened from that angle, and as if I were lazy with it, which I was not. It was a quickly wrapped ending, but the plot ending is there, which is not shown from the back angle Anisha chose. The facial expressions and pivotal moment where the cat calms down are not shown. I wanted that moment to have a feeling of wonder and it does not translate across whatsoever from the back. I feel this will be blamed on me at the showing, if we have one, and I cannot do much about it. Overall, I am happy that I learned more about animation in this project, but the group work ruined things a great deal. I would have been able to wrap things up better and faster if I had not been waiting on Anisha, and I regret asking for others’ input into the plot change after the squirrel rig was found to be broken. Perhaps that sounds unfair, but as I animated everything, I could have avoided a whole lot of trouble if I left the plot of what I was animating as my decision as well, which is why I did not ask for input in the final change and said I would wrap it up as I could on our short time.

#y3a2 #final

Cat Breathing As in the beginning, I thought it would be a nice touch to animate the cat’s breaths, making it so that they are heavier at first right after chasing and shaking off the leaf, but slowly calming down. I did this by spacing out the keyframes. The blink the cat does at the end at the leaving leaf was supposed to be a way of her saying they are ‘good’ now in response to the kiss, as cats tend to blink as a way to show you love. That would have been the cue to fade to black after this point if the camera had chosen to stay with the cat at the ending.

#y3a2 #post25

Leaf Flies Away Apologies for the horrible quality at the beginning of this video. What I am showing here is how I set about animating the leaf to fly off after kissing the cat. I wanted there to be two ending options for the camera - watching the cat watch the leaf leave, or following the leaf as it floats away, which is why I animated it this way. I animated it to fly off for a quite a bit, so that there was enough footage for this to be an option, and to ideally fade to black. Cat Expression Change

As seen here, I wanted the cat to ‘soften’ when the leaf kisses her, losing her glare.

I started to add final touches to the cat’s movements, as here she rearranges her feet/shifts her weight after shaking off the leaf. I also thought it would be a nice touch for her to lift her paw as the leaf kisses her, in surprise. I wanted the ‘pressure’ of the kiss to move the cat to the side in a comedic way but settled for a softer version of it.

As I wanted two types of possible endings, the cat watching it or following the leaf, I tried to make it more interesting for the ending where we watch the cat, so I added in little movements like a curious head tilt as she watches.

For the kiss, I then added in little touches like how the cat’s ears go back in surprise here for a second.

#y3a2 #post24ithin

Leaf Alone Once blocking in the leaf positions, I turned off the Display layer for the ball and worked more on the leaf movements. I had some minor difficulties with the leaf animations, as I wanted to have one animation layer for their overall translatory movement, and one for how they twirl around, so that their keyframes would not get tangled. This backfired a little and the layers ended up overwriting the positions of the other a little. Eye Movements I had to move around the eye positions of the cat after this video, as the leaf was positioned a little differently to the ball and floated around more, so I wanted her eyes to follow them as they do.

As seen above, I sorted the eye movements and I am pretty pleased with how those turned out, as it feels more like the cat is transfixed on the leaf. Leaf On Back

One of the trickiest parts of the animation was this, ‘attaching’ of the leaf to the cat’s back. I am sure there is an easier way to do this, such as parenting the objects to each other, but I did it manually as I was running out of time and could not waste it on tutorials at this stage. The above is a WIP version of this, but this proved trickier than I thought it would be. I had to use two perspective views for this - top and side, as I found when I looked from one of the other angles after being in the first, the leaf was not as close to the cat as it should be.

I next wanted the leaf to fly off realistically, so I had to set it to go off at the correct angle if it were to fly back around to sneak up on the cat to kiss her.

I wanted the cat’s eyes to look around suspiciously in this part while the leaf sneaks around her after being thrown off. The leaf rotation here was a bit of a pain, more than I expected it to be. I believe the twirl around the top I did there maybe would have gone more smoothly if I had researched into the Graphic Editor more and its animation settings, but manually it turned out fine.

I next animated the head of the cat to search around for the leaf, wanting the leaf to sneak past her vision a second before she looks to our left, as in the beginning of the animation when she slept. The head movements are still stiff in this version. I was considering this comedic type of end, where this time she looks around quickly, as if to say the leaf cannot fool her this time. Leaf Personality

Throughout the animation here I felt like I wanted to add a playful element to the leaf, like it knows it is annoying the cat. It made me think of way back when I did flour sack animations to try and give them personality and life, I wanted to think how I could apply this here. Such as in the above, I thought it would be effective if I have the leaf ‘wiggle’ with the cat, so it is as if they are both gearing up to pounce, then it deliberately jumps on her head to tease her before running off. I wanted to have this element throughout and for the cheek kiss at the end to feel like ‘thanks for playing with me, I was just teasing ya’ and for the cat to be a little taken aback by it. Leaf Kiss Progress

I wanted somehow combine the ‘you can’t fool me’ element where the cat finds where the leaf is with the kiss, so the above is the first version of this, where she finds the leaf and it immediately kisses her.

#y3a2 #post23

Leaf Research I looked into leaves and how to make the leaf animation ‘floatier.’ I used the following references when animating.

I looked into different ways to animate them. They tend to fall slowly, twirl around themselves and shift side to side.

#y3a2 #leafresearch #post22probs

Environment Inclusion

At this stage, I asked for the environment to be given to me, as I was to animate the cat running into the tree at the end and so I wanted it to be accurate. The final environment could be swapped out and cylinder trees were set in for the time being.

I was confused at this stage, as the storyboard showed that the environment would be shown first, slowly zooming onto the sleeping cat. However, the environment had been created the wrong way round.

If we were to do the things the way we planned, we would either be zooming onto the cat’s backside, rather than their front, or we would be seeing the back gate, as above.

I asked Anisha to rotate the environment so that her work would be seen, she agreed but after a week I asked her about it and she claimed she didn’t understand what I was saying, although others in the group clearly did and helped to make it clear. She then became argumentative, claiming I was speaking to her badly and I shouldn’t be telling her what to do with her job role. However, my work at this stage directly interacted with hers so I needed to know how things would be set. I had figured she would be rotating it in the time she had said, and had gone about creating another tester tree cylinder, as above on the right, her original on the left. I did this so that I could set for myself exactly where the tree would be once rotated, using the Channel Box to set it exactly in reverse of the first tree. It later became news to me that she meant for the cat to be further to the right on the grass, nowhere near the first left tree. I had asked her earlier on which tree I should be crashing the cat into and she had no qualms about me using that one, which implied to me it would be near to it in the first place. End Plot Change Things took a bad turn with the argument and she became so horrible to work with that I stated that I would be changing the ending, wrapping it up as fast as I could, and that the cat would not be interacting with the environment and that this would be best for everyone. This was so that our roles would not have to interact and so that I would not have to ask for her help, as I would not receive any if I did. She replied normally to this only for me to later find out that she never understood what I was saying, again, and apparently that was too vague for her. I am not sure what she understood ‘best for everyone’ to mean, in that case, but I was trying to state that it would be best if our roles stopped crossing. I could not work with her past that point and she proved with her backlash at me for changing things that I did the right thing. I changed the ending so that instead of the cat crashing into a tree after chasing the leaf, the leaf instead kisses the angry cat on the cheek and she calms down, then it flies away. She claimed I was being ‘immature’ about changing this, and that my work affected others roles, but no one else complained at me about it. I had already stated the obvious that this would happen. This happened over a week after I had posted my final version, with an accompanying video - which she never bothered to watch - for everyone to see how it ended, but mostly for Chandi’s sound reference. Furthermore, she had already stated much earlier in the project that she would be animating the trees to sway, so if I ‘affected her job role’ by not having the cat crash into the trees, she could very well have gone ahead and still done this, but chose not to. I thought she understood what I said when I said the cat would no longer interact with the environment - which was not planned to be in any way other than the tree crashing. I tried to say it in a tactful manner. She could have asked if she did not understand my meaning. I could have informed the group in more detail how I was changing things, yes, but having to deal with her was affecting me mentally. I said I would wrap things up the way I could and wanted to move on from dealing with her. It only became a ‘group issue’ when it was someone other than her doing something ‘out of line’ yet she could not see her own faults and how awful she was to work with.

#y3a2 #post20

Ball Leaf Replacement Once the leaf was done, I set about blocking in its movements as in the above, animating it to follow the movements the ball had followed. In the final version, having the ball as the reference placement may have made the leaf movements look a little strange. As I was setting the ball as a bouncy item, I had to then go back and adjust the leaf’s sequence into something floatier.

#y3a2 #post19probs

Squirrel Glitches At this stage, the squirrel rig was ready and given to me to work with. However, there was one big issue with it. Pia reckoned this may have had something to do with the grouping of squirrel parts in the Outliner, but they never found a fix for it. As seen, the squirrel can be moved with the Translate tool just fine, but for some reason, when this is keyframed and played back, the rig glitches inside out itself badly. I was rather relieved, in fact, that the squirrel did not work. I had asked the 3D modeller to create the squirrel in such a way that it would be bouncy, such as the ball, with a rig control in the centre for squash and stretch. That is the only control I required and she did not do this, even after I had already stated I did not have any plans to animate the squirrel realistically. This was how I planned to animate the squirrel. I had stated this from the beginning and yet she created a realistic rig which would have forced me to change the style I was going for.

Plot Changes Due to the squirrel breaking, we had to move on from the squirrel idea and onto something else for the cat to chase. We were quite a way into the year and at this stage I should have just told the others that I would continue with the cat chasing the ball and that would be it, but I asked for their input instead of what they would like for the plot to change to. The ball idea was presented, and we thought over having the cat asleep, dreaming of chasing a magical ball, for its movements to make sense from so far of what I have animated. However, another idea was presented, of the cat chasing a leaf. Anisha stated she would create this leaf, which took her a week, which would have taken anyone else a day, and did not update anyone on it, getting snappy when asked where it was by the end of the week. When Pia volunteered to quickly create a leaf instead, Anisha stated it would affect her job role and the arguments became worse from there later on. I sincerely regret letting any of the others have any input on the plot at that stage. If I had just animated the cat chasing a ball as I wished to, things could have been gotten done much quicker. This is why I stated much later that I would be changing the ending and dealt with the how of it myself, although I did state what it would affect. Meanwhile waiting for the leaf and idea changes, I continued with animating the third jump sequence for the cat.

#y3a2 #post17

Ball On Back 2 I decided that the ball would jump back onto the cat again, as in the storyboard this was supposed to happen, and I did it the first time as a ‘jump over’ into this, to introduce the idea. However, in the storyboard, the cat is meant to spin in circles to throw the ball off. I found that the cat rig cannot be turned in circles, or it would break. Being turned one way or the other too far also could not be done without glitches and restricted my animating, so I settled for the cat doing as the above as an attempt to throw the ball off instead. In here, I haven’t gotten as far as animating the ball sticking to the cat’s back so it is still static as the cat moves about.

I attempted to do some wacky moves with the cat’s back legs, as before, while the cat tries to buck the ball off, as I wanted it to the animation for that part to be more complex, but it ended up looking much stranger from the front view and made less sense with where the ball was positioned.

As per the storyboard where the squirrel/ball then bounces off of the cat’s back after it spins it off, I animated a bounce sequence where the ball bounced away.

#y3a2 #post18

Ball Chase 3 After the ball rolled off of the cat and bounced away, I had the cat leap after it. I am not super happy with how the cat’s moves went here, but when viewed as one animation it is not as bad. I found that the cat’s back legs glitched a bit if you set the feet to move far back, for a running sequence, so a jumpy type of chase was better than showing that.

#y3a2 #post17

Ball Jumps On Head This turned out very fuzzy after multiple takes for some reason, however this is what I decided to do instead of the ball whacking the cat in the face. Instead, it jumps onto her head and rolls off, bouncing away.

I am quite happy with the changes in her expression in this sequence. I animated her mouth to open and her eyes to follow the ball. Her eyes then narrow at the end as she prepares to chase the ball. I had some glitchy issues with the animation of the head movements initially as it did not want to turn the way I wanted it to at first. These glitch-like movements can also be seen in the previous post where the head moves in a very stiff manner. However, it worked out fine. In the realtime version, as this is slowed down to show the expression changes, the ball going through the ear is not visible at all as it goes very fast. I myself must not have caught it as I am only seeing it now in hindsight also.

After the ball bounces off of the cat’s head I also animated it bouncing away, as above.

#y3a2 #post16

Cat wiggle 2 I had the cat do the same wiggle as before, copy pasting over the keyframes as they were on the same layers and rig controls, before it prepares to jump at the ball again.

I also did the same as before, using the back of the tail control to move the cat backward and to spring forward as it jumps.

I then did another test jump toward the ball. The stance is still closed off at this point. Face Punch Test

With the second jump, I was given a little creative freedom with the cat and squirrel/ball chase, so I had the idea that perhaps when the squirrel/ball next jumps, it could accidentally whack the cat in the face as it jumps at the same time as the cat and they collide. The above is the first trial for that.

Slowed down, the ball actually goes through the cat’s face in this first test. If I had kept this idea, I would have fixed this up. I quickly discarded this idea as I felt it was a bit too rough on the cat and did not fit the cute theme we were going for.

#y3a2 #post15

Cat Kick Test 2 As mentioned, the cat kicks sequence became more complex, as I wanted to move the cat backwards so that it could prepare to jump at the ball again with some space between them. In hindsight, I now see why the kicks looked better in the first test I did, as she was moving in a circle while doing them, rather than standing still as here. It could have been a cute addition if I had managed to keep them in the animation. I could have had the ball move backwards instead of her. Cat Kick Change

I decided that instead of the kicks, the cat would move its butt up and down to show its frustration instead, as above. Also, hopefully it came across well in the final animation, but here I also added animations to the front feet, so that they tap about as she prepares to jump backwards and again at the ball in a minute.

#y3a2 #post14

Cat Jump, Ball Moves I next animated the ball to jump out of the way to the right as the cat jumps for it. The cat then glares. I animated both the top and bottom eyelids.

I animated the head to move back to look down at the ball in a haughty sense of way during the glare. I wanted it to appear as if the cat now means business, as if they are saying ‘Oh it’s like that is it?’

I also made the legs spring a little more in the landing jump. The balls jumps to the side in the last second. This does not translate well from the side, but I intended for it to be viewed from the front. Cat Leg Kicking Test

There are some videos where cats kick their back legs in frustration, and I wanted to try this out in the animation. In these gifs it isn’t too bad, but later on it became more complex and was a move I gave up on as it appeared mechanical.

#y3a2 #post13

Cat First Jump In here, I animated the first test jump the cat does toward the ball.

I also updated the wiggle sequence, animating the next control down from the tail base one I used before. I had it move to the opposite side as the above control, so that when one goes to the left, the other moves to the right. This gave me a much ‘slinkier’ wiggle. I animated each control in its own layer, but had to move them into the same one so that I could see exactly when to move the other one. It makes it easier to time things when they are in the same layer if the movements rely on one another, I’ve found.

In another layer, I set the back butt control which essentially controls the entire upper set of controls, which allows you to move down to bend the cat’s knees and to move the body forward/backwards and side to side. I used this to make the cat’s wiggle a little more realistic. I keyframed it so that the cat bends down, backward, then springs forward. That way it wasn’t a static, side to side wiggle, there was more movement going on as the cat prepares to jump. Also, when the cat lands, I used this control to keyframe in a little ‘springback’ so that the cat doesn’t land stiffly, it moves forward and then backward just a little once it lands.

#y3a2 #post12

Cat First Wiggle Test When the cat awakens and first jumps up, I wanted her to wiggle her butt, preparing to attack the ball. I also animated her ears to become a little more alert.

I was using references such as the above to plot out how exactly the body would move.

I also wanted the way she got up to be more like a jump, changing from how I did it before. I set keyframes for the belly to move and for the cat’s feet to leave the floor for a second in a little jump.

This first butt wiggle set was done by keyframing the rig control at the base of the tail to move to the left and right.

The one control set the rest of the rig to follow it pretty well.

#y3a2 #post11

Cat Awakens I next animated the part where the ball jumps again, this time in front of the cat, which makes her wake up. I animated her eyes so that one opens before the other, but I think it did not come across well, as it is meant to be as if she winks one eye before both and becoming fully alert. I am pretty pleased with how her expression came out at this part.

#y3a2 #post10

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Year 3