KNB221 – ASSESSMENT 1 FINAL DOCUMENTATION
This initial piece of assessment covered a number of technical processes within Unreal Engine 4, Autodesk Maya and Adobe After Effects that are frequently used by industry specialists in their work on various animated and real time projects.
For the three weekly milestones, I was tasked to compose a short render in Unreal Engine by using the sequencer and some basic movement animation, to create a basic character rig in the ARTv1 plugin for Maya and import it with some basic motion into Unreal Engine, and to expand on both of the above by doing them together in the one composition, with some extra post-production in After Effects. On top of these milestones, I also was tasked to conduct some extra experimentation, in order to further expand my knowledge of the processes that will be used in the production pipeline of later projects, such as Assessment 2 later on this semester. Some research that I conducted was moving a camera along a set path within Unreal, transitioning between multiple animations in a sequencer in Unreal using the same actor and extra customisation of rigs and skeletons within the ARTv1 plugin while using different meshes with the same skeletons and animations. I also took some time to revisit After Effects and to better understand rotoscoping and silhouetting techniques within the program.
Out of all of these processes, I found using the ARTv1 plugin to generate a basic rig quite interesting, and would like to further expand on this.
By undertaking all of these processes, I have gained a much greater understanding on the sorts of processes that I will be undertaking in my later studies and in the industry, how to better learn new software and processes, how to better overcome issues that I will inevitably face and how to better estimate and manage my time when undertaking these processes. Across the weekly milestones, I achieved a grasp of how to conduct various processes, such as using the sequencer and camera movement within Unreal Engine, creating a basic rig in an external program (in this case, the ARTv1 plugin for Maya) and importing it into Unreal with motion, and rendering out of Unreal Engine by means of an image sequence in order to post-process the render in After Effects. Through my experimentation I was able to further expand my understanding of the processes and programs used, Unreal Engine, ARTv1 and Adobe After Effects respectively.
In terms of knowledge that I still need to work on in the pipeline of an animated shot, I believe it would be wise to broaden my knowledge to other programs in order to widen my capabilities in terms of tackling a project, and also look to broaden my knowledge of post-production techniques in programs such as After Effects.
The specialist stream that I will be undertaking for Assignment 2 is the Character Development specialist stream. As part of this I would like to be build and rig a character based on provided material and demonstrate its capabilities in Unreal Engine as my chosen line of specialty. I personally want to create a high quality rig myself and get a real understanding of the processes of generating a rig and character within a specialised program, and also to broaden this knowledge to more than one rig creation program as well.
Some industry roles that are relevant to my chosen specialist stream would be those of a Character Animator or a 3D Modeller, who would generally be tasked to create a character rig for a film, video game, advertisement, etc. most likely from provided concept artwork. These positions may also entail the actual animation of said rigs as well in an animated work, however I will be looking more specifically at the actual rig creation and integration into Unreal Engine as part of this assessment. An industry professional who I find inspiring in this role is Sergi Caballer, in particular his character rigging work in the Disney films Zootopia and Moana.
Another position in the industry that I am interested in is Storyboarding and pre-production of animated works, which ties closely with the work of a Character Animator/3D Modeller in the way that these are early steps in the production of an animated work. Generally, a concept artist would give material for a character rigger to work with and a story boarder would provide material for the actual beginnings of the animated process. One artist’s work that is inspirational to me is the work of Brad Bird, particularly his storyboarding work on The Simpsons and King of the Hill.
A good example of Bird’s work can be found here: http://www.animationmeat.com/pdf/televisionanimation/strybrd_the_simpsonsway.pdf
The knowledge and skills that are required for my selected specialist stream would include the ability to create a specialised character rig based on provided concept art and to be able to demonstrate its capabilities as a rig in Unreal Engine. These have been somewhat explored already as part of the weekly milestones in Assignment 1, however this particular project will be far more specialised, more specifically the creation of the rig. Although I know how to use the ARTv1 plugin fairly basically, I will need to gain a more specialised understanding of creating a detailed character mesh and design using a program such as ARTv1 as I have not yet made a detailed character model myself. However, my current knowledge of this program will surely help to understand more complex processes in ARTv1 itself or another rigging plugin/program that could be used for this assignment.
Some resources that would be useful in furthering my knowledge are below:
http://www.sergicaballer.com/ - Sergi Caballer’s website. Here he posts to his blog about his work at Disney and also posts information on some of the programs and tools he uses as well as his portfolio.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Tools/MayaRiggingTool/ - Unreal Engine 4 documentation. Includes plenty of information and guides on the ARTv1 plugin to further broaden my knowledge of the program, and perhaps better understand other programs.
http://www.creativebloq.com/3d-world/maya-tutorial-rig-character-posing-9134476 - an interesting tutorial on rigging a character with a skeleton. Will be useful when creating a skeleton for my character rig in this project.
https://creative.pluralsight.com/learningpath/51-Modeling-for-Character-Artists-in-Maya - a link to Pluralsight with multiple video tutorials based around modelling characters in Maya. Will prove very useful as a guide in the early stages of this project, and has beginner, intermediate and hard stages.
