Well, the project is drawing to a close (for the third and final time,) and, with the animation done and dusted, I have been able to move on to the lighting and processing of my scenes today.
Lighting is something which I’ve always enjoyed experimenting with in my animations - I think I especially like it because, unlike the tasks that come before it, the effect of lighting changes is immediate. It’s another of those processes in 3D film-making whose workflow is utterly unique, requiring its own set of skills and involving its own set of challenges. In this project, I’ve done something which I’ve never attempted before in regards to the lighting: only two shots of the entire film have any light sources in them at all.
Since the early stages of visualising this story, I’ve had a very clear idea of the aesthetic I’ve wanted to use. From the start, I knew that colour was paramount to the emotional success of the film, as well as the fact that everything would have to be heavily stylised to allow for such limited detail per shot. These thoughts heavily influenced the modelling and animation processes, to the point where I’ve had to re-build scenes for the sake of their layout and their colouring in this two-tone shading technique I’ve developed (which you can read about further back on this blog.) With so much emphasis being placed on the success of colour and style, the lighting was always going to be a difficult process - one that I was afraid would take up far too much time to perfect. The problem with lighting in 3D is that it behaves in very unusual ways at first; it requires a great deal of tweaking and many hours of rendering to get the right look for each shot. In an attempt to cut down the amount of time necessary in lighting design late in the project, I decided to make a system by which everything was lit, but there were no lights. In each scene, I would select the materials which needed changing according to whatever the colouring needed to be (e.g. the time of day, season, how well the room is lit) and I would adjust them. This process had to be done for every lighting change, every transition between interior/exterior shots, and during particularly low-contrast scenes where everything appeared flat and void of detail.
Although this all sounds like a lot of work for very little result (which, by the way, should be the tagline of the animation industry as a whole,) it progressed much more quickly than any lighting setup would, and gave me complete control over how everything looks when rendered. I know that it was much more efficient this way, as I did have to render a couple of scenes with actual lights... Fairly late in production, I designed a piece of concept art for the most poignant moment in the film: where the elderly lady is mourning the loss of her long-time companion. In this shot, I decided to feature two beams of light (known in the business as volumetric light) which come down at a 45-degree angle and rest on the dog and his owner. These rays really made the image special for me, and I decided that, when the time came around to animate that scene, I would try to incorporate them. This was a very ambitous thing to do, as simply adding the effect to the scene wouldn’t suffice. To make it work, I would have to ensure that the scene’s aesthetic matches up with the others, I would have to experiment with a range of rendering systems for the right effect, and I would have to change all sorts of values to keep my two-tone materials from appearing too bright in the highly concentrated beams coming from the window. All of this was very tricky to co-ordinate, but I managed to come up with a decent result - one that brings a whole new level of emotion to what could have been a very dull scene, indeed.
The Final Project - Animating my Characters (p.12)
Well, the time has come to say goodbye to another series of posts as I come face-to-face with the end of the project. I am both relieved with the conclusion of this, the most tedious process in the pipeline, and regretful at not having developed it better. There’s no denying that the animation is the least developed part of my film, not for lack of trying, though. I’ve spent a very long time on breathing life into my characters, and have used the time efficiently - with my current level of experience and in this time-frame, I don’t believe I could have done it any better than I have.
One thing I do wish I had done in this process is to have explored motion capture properly... I did consider it in the early stages of the project (when everything was purely conceptual) but I believed that I might be making a very complicated, difficult set of movements for whatever my character was going to be. As a result, I decided to put motion capture to one side, and didn’t think to integrate it once I knew that my project was going to be much calmer than previously intended. Motion capture could, potentially, have saved me a considerable amount of time - however, I wouldn’t have learned as much as I have from doing everything manually. Though I certainly haven’t mastered animation, my skills have developed massively from all of those frustrating occasions at 4AM when I’ve been trying to make a decent walk cycle for a dog.
One side of animation which I think I am actually fairly good with is the more intricate side - if only because it’s not nearly as tedious and repetitive as the most basic movements of the whole body. Making facial expressions was a particularly enjoyable part of the animation process, as I worked more as an actor than as a puppeteer.
Despite the experience of this -my most extensive exploration of animation so far- my career plan is still fixed upon the same goal as it was during the last project. It is still my ambition to become a concept artist or story developer for animated movies, and focusing my efforts into the creative side as I have over these 11 weeks has been a real step forward on the way to it...
I’ve spent today concluding work on the montage, which has been fairly simple to do, and which will really help convey the passing of time in my film. Though I’m still not entirely sure about how organic the montage will look once the footage has been edited together into something complete and chronological. This, as with many things, can only be reflected upon properly once the film is complete - an eventuality which is drawing nearer and nearer every day.
Today has been very stressful, working on only an hour’s sleep to bring this project to a close isn’t recommended to any animators who may be reading this (though I’m sure you’ve all done it before now and you will probably have to again at some point.) This morning I started my day at 4AM and worked until 12PM, animating and rendering as quickly as I could to complete everything in time. Though I’ve worked constantly over the past few weeks, with work hours varying between 16 and 23 per day, I’ve not been able to satisfactorily submit my film. This is due in part to the time-consuming nature of animation, and the even more time-consuming errors which I’ve faced over the past week, but the biggest problem of all is rendering. I’m paying a great deal of money to have my fully animated files rendered and their finished frames sent back to me... Even then, I’ve had to wait far too long to receive them and my ability to progress with the project has, obviously, relied on a constant supply of finished material to edit and compile.
The project simply wouldn’t have been finished in time, but I was granted an extension and am now breathing many sighs of relief. The extension isn’t huge, but it’s enough time bring this project comfortably to a close before submission - as long as I plan everything properly. In an attempt to take full advantage of this extra time, I’ve broken down the remaining workload into its various sections, working out where errors need to be fixed and prioritising the most crucial shots for the render farm and for my desktop PC (which I’ve been doing the animation on, but can use as a machine to render with.) With all of this considered and organised properly, I can say with confidence that I will have the film uploaded and ready for hand-in on Tuesday morning.
This post is going to be a fairly short one, as I’m in the midst of solving what it’s about. If I find a way around the issue, I’ll probably mention it as an update at the bottom of the post, here.
This was going to be my twelfth and final ‘Animating my Characters’ post, as it is the last day in the schedule for animating (though the workload is beginning to worry me, even without time-consuming problems like this one.) It seems, though, that I’ll be making another tomorrow, right before my hand-in, about how I managed to solve all the problems and put this project to bed at last - though that doesn’t sound very likely to the sleep-deprived person typing this right now... Essentially, the problem is that, when I set keyframes in Maya, the character’s skeleton doesn’t do it’s usual, gradual shift from one to the other, but instead jumps to the next one as soon as the appropriate frame arrives. I looked online and found people with similar problems and attempted to adapt the solutions to my issue, but nothing is working. My only thought now would be to look into the animation graph editor, where the more intricate animation work is carried out.
I’ll keep you posted.
UPDATE: I did manage to solve the problem, but only by pure chance. I can’t say which of my attempts fixed it, as it only corrected itself once the file had been reloaded for the fifth time... I do know, though, that I can power on with the animation, in the hopes that I can finish it for tomorrow.
With so few days left in the project, I’ve decided to ensure the completion of the rendering by sending it all off to GarageFarm: a useful online rendering service which I was only acquainted with less than a week ago.
Although 3D animation requires many resources to produce, what it takes above all else is time. As with many things, it requires a great deal of time to produce... unlike many things, however, much of that time is spent after you’ve finished working on it. I am, of course, talking about the painful process of rendering your footage. Whether you’ve made a mickey mouse adventure film, a sci-fi droid saga or a little story of a woman and her dog, rendering is something which you must face.
Simply put, the process of rendering is what it’s called when the computer takes the files which you’ve been working on, reads a list of things to do with those files, and then interprets them with this list of specifications. In my case, I’m asking the computer to take my low-quality, badly coloured 3D “scenes” and to turn them into high-quality versions. Rendering requires a great deal of time and computing power to work efficiently, to the point where artists have to abandon their PCs for weeks - in the hopes that their footage will be interpreted at a high quality, without any errors. For this project, I simply don’t have the time to wait for my clunky desktop to churn out the frames... Instead, I’ve decided to use a render farm.
Render farms are essentially large banks of computers (known by those involved as nodes) which sit and process files all day long. These files come from all over the world to be rendered, by why bother sending your files off somewhere else, what does it do differently from your own computer? Well, each node has very high quality hardware and, when you use more than one at a time, you can render footage which would usually take ten hours, in just one. Of course, these facilities do charge, and I’m having to pay those charges - they’re worth it, as I want to make this film as good as it can be in the time-frame I have left...
I have a planned total of 40 shots for this film, and I’m going to need 80% of those to be sent off, else I won’t be able to finish in time. We’ll see how it goes.
My film can be split up into three main sections, each of which carries its own overarching themes and which is told in its own way. The best way to distinguish between the sections is through the music, which is built from a collection of 10-second phrases; each of these has its own purpose, too - providing the flexibe and dynamic framework for the immediately and cyclically emotional film which it was written for. The first section documents initial discovery and the exploration of the unknown; the second -the montage- conveys the development of relationships through the passage of time (both through the slow increase of physical closeness and through the more obvious aesthetic changes, such as the colour of the leaves in Autumn.) The third, which I’ll cover in more detail as I approach production for it, delivers the great heartbreak of the two humans and follows their eventual recovery.
The first section was particularly difficult technically - especially because it was my first attempt at a full narrative in 3D. Moreover, it featured levels of detail in animation which have proven to be very time-consuming and stressful. As the film moves on, though, the storytelling becomes much more gestural, more instinctive. By this point the audience knows the characters and has a general undestanding of their environment, allowing for other facets of the story to take the place of those initial pointers for the audience. These other facets are mainly emotional devices, such as emphasis on colour and on the metaphorical tropes which are delivered through environment, blocking and character expression.
Each of these three has its own challenges, and the montage sets itself apart more than the others. It is told in an entirely different narrative style to the other two sections - it’s told, as every montage is, with the knowledge of it being false. We don’t live our lives in montages, therefore the realism of the film is temporarily hindered by the montage; especially in the cases of incredibly cliche’ deliveries.
I was concerned, when I first came up with the idea of doing a montage, that it would destroy the characterful and emotional narrative which I had fought so hard to deliver in this piece. Thankfully, though, my main inspiration for this project, Pixar’s ‘Up’, featured a similar montage in its critically acclaimed opening sequence, which gave me the confidence necessary to construct my own without destroying everything I had already designed.
I’ve managed, at least for now, to find a way of preventing this terrible lag that’s begun so spontaneously when working with my Maya files. It wouldn’t be entirely true if I were to say that I’ve overcome the problem entirely - rather, I’ve worked around it for now.
This post is going to be a fairly short one, as the majority of the day was spent dealing with the lag, and the remainder of the day featured exactly the same processes as I’ve mentioned previously: animating.
To keep the problem from delaying me massively mid-animation, I’ve had to bite the bullet and remove the park entirely. Though the path and the green grass remain, everything of significant detail has been removed, in the hope that the computer would begin working properly again. This decision, though a difficult one, will allow me to be far more efficient in the upcoming days of the project - days which need to be very successful, else I fear that I may not deliver the film as I would like to.
I will rebuild the park once the animation has been completed, importing the finished version into each individual scene to ensure that everything looks the same from one shot to the next. I find that working in slow-motion, as animators always do, utterly changes the perspective of the artist; their more intricate plans for each shot emerge very well, but the overall continuity of the piece can be harmed considerably by such a powerful magnifying glass as we animators are equipped with.
This week has been one of immense technicality, continuing the rather dull processes which I first experienced last week - this time, though, working with a diverse range of locations and having more room to explore cinematography, making it mildly interesting.
This week has been very taxing; while doing the work, it all seemed insignificant and totally void of creativity, but, looking back, I am aware of how I’ve improved my project with it, and am prepared to continue for as long as necessary. I do hope, though, that the boredom I’m feeling isn’t going to impact the quality of the final film. As I’ve undoubtledly explained before on this blog, animating this film is simply a necessity - that is to say, without it, there wouldn’t be a film.I don’t have the time to convey any meaning or character with it effectively. Professional animators are capable of delivering a great deal of information simply through their characters’ gestures and gait - I, however, can only animate to the degree where the audience can figure out what’s going on at a basic level. I’m hoping that the other, stronger parts of the piece (e.g. music and narrative) will deliver the emotion which I’m trying to evoke.
As the week has neither been very easy nor very hard, it’s hard for me to identify strengths and weaknesses for it. I would say, if I had one positive comment about my work this week, is that I’ve really applied myself to a particularly bad task, not trying to get around it or to rush through it. I’ve done it as I should: slowly but surely, making sure that the quality of what I’m making is good enough for the general public to see (and to enjoy.) This first section of the film is most definitely the most time-consuming to animate, as it features a variety of wide shots - most keeping the entirety of each camera in view, not allowing for any little errors or any cut-corners. The second section -the montage- will be much easier than the first to produce, especially with my new plan (I intend to use a set of slightly-moving, ultra-slow clips to tell the story of the relationship between the girl and the woman.)
As soon as I’ve completed this first, incredibly difficult section, I’m sure I’ll feel much more positive about the animation process. For now, though, it’s my least favourite task of the entire project... I both greatly admire and pity professional animators (in pretty much equal measure.)
If I were to choose a main weakness in my work this week, it would be less to do with the time available and more to do with what I would have done if I had had more time. Technically speaking, I think I’ve used this week as efficiently as possible, but my results are still unsatisfying.
This was quite a short evaluation, as I have little to say that hasn’t already been said this week.
Well, it seems I can never have a whole week of uninterrupted production... Thankfully, though, this hasn’t completely stopped me in my tracks. Just for the most-part.
This week has been productive, slowly but surely chipping away at the mass of character animation in this film - I’ve mentioned before about just how long everything takes, but I think I might make a post specifically about the time-consuming nature of 3D animation soon. With a fairly productive week underway, I was pleased (if a little tired) to be working through everything; this latest tech-issue, though, has slowed the rate of production hugely - forcing me to re-make my schedule and develop a range of contingencies just in case I can’t deliver in time.
The problem is relatively simple in comparison with its predecessors, involving parts of the system which I have a decent knowledge of. The cause of the problem, though, is what concerns me... Essentially, the computer program (Maya) attempts to load the file I ask it to, before freezing. When I first saw this, I thought it was simply that it was a big file, so it needed a couple of minutes to process everything in the environment... but hours passed without any sign of improvement and my worries seemed more and more legitimate as precious production time was slipping away. Roughly three hours later, the computer began working again and completed loading the file. I decided not to close the software from now on to prevent this happening again. But then there was something else.
This dramatic slowing of the computer program’s loading was matched with its sudden lag when navigating the scenes. The first part of the problem was fairly easy to circumnavigate, as I simply had to reduce the number of shut-downs I performed on the computer, but this second part prevented me from doing my work while the software was running. I have absolutely no idea why it decided to start doing this when it did, as comparitively little had changed in the file from when I had last opened it - when it loaded within thirty seconds. It’s this spontaneity which has put me into a panic, simply because I’m putting a lot of faith into a system which could simply stop working right before hand-in...
Anyway, I’m still struggling with this problem as I write this, and will make a post when (and if) I manage to solve it.
Remember when I said ages ago that I like makng soundtracks and that I really wanted to make one for this project. Well, I already have... I decided, about a third of the way through the project, that I couldn’t just make good music on command, whenever I needed to... This had to be a slow development process if it was to have a good result, so I’ve been spending a day or so per week developing the music and, now, it’s ready to talk about.
Music is something which I have a deep interest in – particularly film music. Like the development of aesthetic, music is something which can drastically affect the way a story is told – it can both enrich the subject, and handicap it… I’ve always been a strong believer in the power of music in film, with its total influence claiming a third of the ‘film wheel’ which I developed last year. Though the number will vary massively from person-to-person, I don’t think many people would be happy to have their films without music – and, those who think that should see their favourite films without their masterful soundtracks. I’ve only developed one soundtrack for any projects in UCA so far, it was a short soundtrack for ‘The Fly,’ which was highly synthetic and incredibly simplistic – I made it in about a day, as I recall. For this project, though, the task is entirely different… after all, this is a silent short film, and its emotional impact relies on a few strong elements to succeed. Music is one of these.
This project is heavily inspired by Pixar’s ‘Up,’ which features an incredible sequence at the very beginning, aptly titled ‘Married Life,’ where a couple are shown living and growing old, together. Though their lives, they encounter many of the problems which people in the real world do – there is no ridiculous plot or lofty goal… They are simply living their lives together, going on every-day adventures. The absolutely stunning visuals and cinematography in this sequence weren’t what astounded me, though – what truly made the section special was the serene score by musical genius Michael Giacchino, who composed a soundtrack to their life in ¾. That sequence stands as one of the best feats of filmmaking I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness, and many of my creative decisions have been affected one way or another by that sequence – so, it seems only fitting that I would devote my final major project to the film I care the most about. Similar to that film, mine documents the relationship of two people over the course of almost a year; it documents the everyday adventures and heartbreak which face us in life. With such an emotional storyline, I needed an emotional soundtrack.
I began with choosing the time signature (the rate at which the music progresses from one bar to another – how many notes are in a bar) and decided to honour ‘Married Life’ by choosing the same waltz style. At over 100 beats per minute, this produced a bouncy and cheerful tempo to drive the narrative forward with. I then developed a beat and main melody for the piece – the idea being that I would develop the main theme first, and then transpose it into various different keys, with different instruments, to tell the different sections of the story arc. I managed to create a strong melody – one which was versatile enough to be both sad and happy under the right circumstances. The idea of themes -or motifs- in music something which has interested me since I started composing (I’ve been doing it for about a year-and-a-half, now) and I’ve been desperate to try it out. This time, through enough experimentation, I succeeded in it.
Once I had the melody, I began to develop what I call the supporting instruments, I used a program called ‘Mixcraft’ to write the notes and then changed the type of instrument or section of instruments each group of notes would be played by. I did this until I had created various ‘layers’ in the music, developing a rich timbre that would add a level of depth to the film. Once I had finished this main theme, I began dissecting its various parts and worked out which ones could be adapted to lead other movements within the piece. To differentiate the movements, I arranged the score to have a different collection of instruments playing for each section respectively…
You can drive a whole lot of meaning in music simply through the type of instrument you choose – if you want it to be clean and happy, then choose a string section playing entirely in pizzicato, if you want something really sad, opt for a piano with the sustain pedal permanently held (maybe through a string section in there if you’re looking for something with more depth.) Now, I did do a music GCSE, but that was purely about learning the technicalities of music – you can’t so much be taught to write good music, but you can be guided in the right direction. Unfortunately, I’ve never had that sort of coaching so my skills in arrangement are somewhat lacking, but almost two years of experimentation, coupled with an interest in music in general, has allowed me to develop more than I thought I could have back when I was struggling through that GCSE.
The soundtrack runs for the entire film with no breaks, and responds to the various narrative shifts through the cues I’ve marked down through both concept-development and production. It’s a highly unusual thing for me to be proud of something I’ve produced, but I can say confidently that this music is good – it will really draw out the emotion in the piece more than anything else could.
I’ll post the YouTube link to the soundtrack later today, so anyone on here can listen, too.
Another day of animation has come and gone and, though I’m definitely becoming more efficient through time, I’m still going at a slow pace. I don’t nor have ever expected animation to be fast and simple, but such simple movements as the ones I’m developing should surely be faster than this?
Worries aside, today has been productive. I’ve completed a couple of shots and am gearing up to the real challenge: the montage. Now, I do have a plan-b just in case I can’t deliver the montage in these remaining 14 days (some of which will be spent editing and colour-correcting,) but I’m fairly certain, if I design it properly, I can complete it before the deadline...
I’ve been thinking about ways to save time, and these blog posts have come into question. Yes, they are a way to track my progress, and taking notes of things I learn is a very useful skill when there is something I’m learning, but, for the moment at least, most are posts where I’m simply documenting repetitive tasks day after day. To ensure I’m being as efficient as possible with my time, I’m going to cut back on the posts; if I have something useful to say one day, then I’ll make a post about it (and will, of course, be doing my weekly evaluations as usual) but, apart from that, there really is very little need to simply re-word that which I said yesterday.
The post frequency probably won’t change that much (as I just can’t help being verbose) but I’m mentioning it just in case.
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