Karen Attridge @k-attridge-blog - Tumblr Blog

Specialisation Project B

Audition

Just an update as to how far this project was able to come.

I was able to customise the Norman rig, using Max, to build him some clothes, and hair. I then tried two of the skinning techniques in Maya, and found the second method to be more favourable (painting weights right on to the mesh), as this provided better accuracy. I also had a short play, with the Maya script, that allows ‘ghosting’.

Though I had only planned to get this project started, for completion later, I would have liked to have progressed a bit further, and attempted some animation with this character. I am glad to have had some experience in using Maya, this trimester, though. I plan to see if I can arrange my voice talent, once more, and finish this off, when I’m able to.

New Techniques/ Technologies

As an animator, who initially came from a 2D animation background, I find comfort in learning of new techniques, and technologies, that allow me to bridge my skill sets together. The more technology advances, the closer that gap becomes.

Some of these techniques/ technologies, can be seen used in films, such as Disney’s ‘Paperman’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZJLtujW6FY , where the 3D software is used to produce the 2D style appearance, or in ‘The Iron Giant’, where the 2D colour palette allows the 3D robot to blend in naturally, within his environment.

One of my favourite finds, this trimester, was a simple, yet very helpful, script, for animating in Maya. I’d like to thank Chris, for helping me to find this too. It allows for a similar result, as ‘ghosting’, in 3Ds Max, though offers a more advanced, and more 2D animator- friendly, features. The advanced features, allow you to customise the key frames that are shown, and allows you to even set the frames you want to reference from. It even allows for navigation, of the references, in 3D space. The potential for this, is to allow for faster, and more efficient, work flow, as well as for the convenience. Although I did not have as much time as I would have liked, to utilise this, I will definitely be going back to it again, in future.

References

Horgan, B. (2015). bhGhost Onion Skinning and Ghosting Tool for Maya Creates Outlines of Your Animation [Video File] . Retrieved from http://lesterbanks.com/2012/09/bhghost-onion-skinning-and-ghosting-tool-for-maya-creates-image-outlines-of-your-animation/

Horgan, B. (2015). bhGhost. Retrieved from http://www.graphite9.com/MayaDownloads.html

Snouty pig. (2012, November, 12). Paperman and the Future of 2D Animation [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZJLtujW6FY

My Role In Projects

Witchdoctor vs. Orc

In our specialisation group project, our team consisted of myself, Meg, and Mayu. We had also attempted to get an audio student, and voice talent, on board too, but faced some issues, regarding availability, and time.

Our roles were broken in to components, for the project. I was responsible for the creation of the witchdoctor, while Meg was responsible for her orc. Mayu provided us with the environment, and SFX.

As well as creating the witchdoctor, Meg and I also developed a basic story (which we’ve had to re-scope a few times, due to being a little over-ambitious), which I then created pre-visuatlisations for. The above pre-viz is the final one we went with, though we reduced the number of scenes. While we were unsuccessful in arranging our audio, I was also the one who attempted to organise an audio student, and voice actor.

Efficient Animation Group Project

In this project, my main role, was as Art Director. I researched a number of references, for inspiration, and created a colour palette, which primarily consisted of pastels. I also provided feedback, and constructive criticism, towards the overall look of the film, and attempted to ensure that the appearance of the film, remained consistent.

My other contributions included creating scene assets, for the scenery, and animating a number of scenes.

Efficient Animation Group Project - My Animated Scenes

These were the scenes that I had animated.

Efficient Animation Group Project - Lighting

Using the lights, provided by Alicia, I would face the spotlights on to the focal point, of the scene; in this case, the witch. These spotlights follow her, as she enters the tower. I then also point the spotlight on the witch, at the top of the tower, which also casts a rather spider-like shadow, on to the backdrop.

Efficient Animation Group Project - Digital Environment

The scene I had put together, for our Efficient Animation Group Project, for the scenes I had animated.

Only the ‘Spooky’ themed objects were used, for this scene, as we have reached the end of the story, when the witch has finished casting her spell, throughout the lands, and is now sitting back, and enjoying a cocktail, in front of her spooky tower. The two parties are positioned on opposite ends of the scene, to provide a kind of confrontational, ‘stand-off’, feel. Minimal objects were placed in the foreground, to prevent distractions, as the scene already consists of many elements.

Specialisation Project A

Iconic Inspiration (Finding the Character)

“The animators are always trying to push the envelope, in terms of performance, and really think about their characters...the common thing that everyone says is, actors with pencils, or pixels, in this case...their really concerned with making these characters feel alive.” (Bird, B., ABC Family's Making of "The Incredibles") As one of my specialised interests include animation, I feel that it’s important to create my characters, with rich, well-developed, personalities. I’ve drawn most of my inspiration from the movie “The Incredibles”, in terms of character development, and art style. “Really, what animation is, is capturing the essence of something, and putting your own spin on it” (Bird, B.)

For the witchdoctor, I wanted to bring out a mysterious, villainous, sharp, yet un-hinged, and dark, yet playful, persona, with the acrobatic abilities, of a circus performer. I drew inspiration for these, from characters, such as “Rafiki’, “Ace Ventura”, “The Joker”, “Bugs Bunny”, and “Spider-man”.

“Trying to get in to a character, the first thing to do, is, figure out who this character is, and what are his motivations” (n.n., ABC Family's Making of "The Incredibles")

When considering my witchdoctor’s motives, I wanted him to come across as someone who was simply looking to have a bit of fun; even when faced with an enemy. This is why he smiles, and ‘dances’, rather mockingly, around his opponants, as he is revelling in the moment, rather than simply trying to survive it. “We wanted them to be stylised, but we wanted them to be believable” (Bird, B., ABC Family's Making of "The Incredibles") Using ‘Frozone’, from ‘The Incredibles’, for inspiration, I attempted to create a simple, clean, stylised, art style. This can be seen especially in the face (referred to, in a previous post: http://k-attridge.tumblr.com/post/114385250139/specialisation-project-amodelling-the-face-when). This gave the character a more ‘cartoon-like’ appearance, which adds to the more comical nature, of the project. I had also, initially, hoped to give the witchdoctor a voice, for this project, but was unable to arrange a voice actor in time. The initial idea, for his laugh, was formed the basis of his personality, which I feel can be best compared to ‘Ed’ from ‘The Lion King’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLfxZs2g0uA

References:

Mercer, T. (n.d.). ABC Family's Making of "The Incredibles" [Video File]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/7368021

whoohwhocanibe. (n.d.) Delayed Explosion. Retrieved from http://imgur.com/gallery/vDCPO

Photobucket.com. (n.d.). bugs bunny is running without wearing his gloves. Retrieved from http://photobucket.com/images/bugs%20bunny%20is%20running%20without%20wearing%20his%20gloves

343aaaa. (2010, August, 6). Ace Ventura When Nature Calls - Spear in the bone [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0toAUUHD4g

Dickens, D. (2013, December, 5). 10 questions we have after watching the 'Amazing Spider-Man 2' trailer. Retrieved from http://www.hitfix.com/news/10-questions-we-have-after-watching-the-amazing-spider-man-2-trailer

Tan, I. (2005, December 7). Why Frozone’s wife rawks. Retrieved from http://bigflask.blogspot.com.au/2005/12/why-frozones-wife-rawks.html

ProEra47. (2014, April, 11). Lion King - Ed's Laugh [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLfxZs2g0uA

Specialisation Project A

Lighting

Following Steve’s class, on lighting, I decided to play around with some 3-point lighting, on my witchdoctor. Although I won’t have much time, this trimester, to fully explore lighting, in my current project, lighting is an area I’d like to improve on, in future. I was able to apply some 3 point lighting to some of my older projects though, which was helpful in enhancing some of my renders, for my show reel.

Specialisation Project A

Morph Targets

Basic morph targets, including blink, frown, and smile. I would have liked to create more morphs, and perhaps even created an attribute holder/ controller, for them, if I had the time.

Specialisation Project A

Cloth Dynamics - Test 2

The test, for the cloth dynamic, on the witchdoctor’s hair.

Specialisation Project A

Cloth Dynamics - Part II

As the witchdoctor has rather thick dreadlocks, as opposed to flowing, silky, hair, Steve suggested that I use the cloth dynamic as well, for this. This proved much more tricky, than the simple loin-cloth.

I attempted several methods, for allowing this to work, but found that my initial attempts, would run in to a few different issues; mostly involving issues with collision, and sometimes, breaking the rig. This is simply because the character was not built, with dynamics, in mind, and so I had to get creative, and find a solution around this.

1) I was unable to use add the dynamics (using planes, or cylinders) on the original mesh, as the driving planes would simply collide with the hair, that they were surrounding, or embedded in.

2) I was unable to simply apply the cloth dynamic, straight on to the character’s mesh, and preserving his entire body, as this simply slowed the computer down, to the point of crashing.

3) The solution that worked, was to copy the original mesh, and delete the body, while keeping just the hair. This maintained the skinned information, and so would follow the rig, as the original mesh would. I did have issues with trying to hide the original hair, at first, without breaking the rig, or causing unwanted collisions, with the driver, but was able to find a solution, by selecting the hair, and using ‘hide selection’, in the ribbon. I then tried to use the main mesh, as the collision object, but found that this had issues, which I assume relates to the loin cloth, already using the mesh, as a collision object. To solve this, I simply duplicated the character mesh, and deleted the hair, while preserving the skinning, so that it would follow the same animation, as the character mesh. This was able to work well, even while hidden.

Specialisation Project A

Cloth Dynamics - Test

Just a basic test, for the cloth dynamic, and the rig. While I’m rather happy with how my model turned out, in some areas, I do feel there’s much room for improvement, in my modelling. The specific areas I would like to focus on, in future, include the shoulders, and general torso area.

Specialisation Project A

Cloth Dynamics

Following Steve’s class, on cloth dynamics, I decided to attempt to replace my current ‘hair’ and ‘loin cloth’, with a dynamic-driven one.

The loin cloth was quite straight-forward, and required minimal changes to basic settings. I used the character’s main mesh, as the collision object. Although the ‘cotton’ preset was quite effective, I found that I would sometimes need to try heavier ones, for different types of animation.

Specialisation Project A

Skinning

Skinning the character was straight-forward enough, although I did have issues with the weighting of the envelopes.

The issue was that the weights were allocating themselves, to the surrounding vertices, despite the fact that I was weighting them properly (adding only, not subtracting). This was easily fixed, by baking the vertices in. Simple select all the vertices (in ‘edit envelopes’ mode), and press the button above.

Specialisation Project A

Adding A Custom Rig

As mentioned earlier, the Super-Simple Rig wasn’t able to effectively allow any additional, custom, appendages, and so I decided to create a custom rig of my own. Although I did not end up keeping this additional rig, it was good practice, in allowing me to understand some of the basics of rigging. In the image above, I had created a master control, which would control each section of the hair, as a whole; which was faster than individually animating each deadlock. The only downside to this, was that I was unable to find a way to allow each strand to be manipulated on it’s own, without further research.

Specialisation Project A

Super-Simple Rig

Although we had initially hoped to bring the character in to Maya, to animate, we found ourselves short on time, and so made the decision to rig the character in 3Ds Max, instead. We went with Steve’s recommendation, to use Super-Simple rig, to create a custom rig.

Overall, the plugin was rather easy to use, and once a few minor bugs were sorted, it was actually rather hassle-free. Some things to note, when making a rig, include:

1) Insuring the joints are slightly bent (even after straitening them), and keeping in mind. This had initially caused issues for me, as the right knee would flip it’s X,Y,Z axis, whenever the leg was moved; which caused it to flip unnaturally, and caused the skin to twist horribly.

2) Keeping in mind, that any additional appendages, will not register, and so will need to be custom built, in to the base rig. This is an issue that I had realised, when attempting to create a rig for my hair.

3) You may need to play around with the eye locators, as both Meg and I had issues with the eyes not rotating properly, on the axis. This seems to be a hit and miss, as my first rig attempt had this problem, but the second attempt was fine.

Download rig from here: http://www.superrune.com/tools/supersimplerig.php

Specialisation Project A

Texture

We’ve kept the textures, for our characters, fairly basic, for practical reasons. This simply allows us time to focus on other aspects of the project. A cartoon-like appearance also contributes towards the cartoon-styled animation.

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Karen Attridge