#introductionto3danimation

[mi4014amytaylorsteward]

Evaluation

After finishing my project & presenting my animation I have got feedback on it. I learned many things in this project, some things that I didn’t expect that I would at the start of this project, & I am thankful for the workshops I took part in that helped me do that. My expectations at the start were to complete the objectives & fulfil the heterotopia animation theme I was tasked to do. I think I have achieved that objective & am pleased. There are a few cons to this project that stem from the problems I had in the animation, one of them being the glitches that made it into the final edit. Had I redone it I would try & find out the cause of the problem & put it right as I felt it spoiled the animation a bit. Another thing that I didn't like in the final edit was the too many shots of the camera moving. I had feedback on this & agree that “less is more” in this circumstance as I feel it didn’t allow the audience to focus on one aspect for too long before changing. One other thing was the fact I slowed down the scenes too much sometimes to the point that it looked jittery. If I were to do that part again I’d reanimate the camera so it was at the right speed so that I wouldn't need to slow it down in the edit.

Overall there are some parts I like about the animate that others agreed on, eg. the camera going into the snowglobe. Other parts I am not pleased with are due to the problems I had in making it. If I were to do it again I would see how it would look like with different camera angles & do still shots in some parts.

[mi4014amytaylorsteward]

Ideas & Development: (Rough) Storyboard & Plan

This storyboard shows how I plan to execute my animation which will guide me in the animation process. This will also give me a guide on how long I should have each scene due to the amount of shot changes in storyboard.

[mi4014amytaylorsteward]

Snow Globe Animation

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ikplZfQ1bmtpoDoNNjJj7Q0W38Le1XH1/view?usp=sharing

[mi4014amytaylorsteward]

Making Of Snow Globe Animation (Pt2): Lighting, Animating, Rendering, Editing

After modelling & texturing I set up the scene with cameras & lights ready for animation. I set several cameras so that I can switch easily when animating. I animated & rendered individual scenes on each camera so that I could put them together in After Effects afterwards so I could edit them slightly. This also puts less pressure on the computer I am using to do this as rendering can take a long time & the computer can overheat. I was inspired by Alfonso Cuaron’s cinematic style to show the animation in a more gloomy, serious light as it fits well with the theme of the snow globe story. Because of this, I went for a blue toned light. I also put small spotlights underneath each shelf to highlight each snow globe packaging & to draw the viewer in to make sure that is the object of significance. 

In my animation I used 2 methods of animating; moving the object & translating it with the graph editor. I did have some problems halfway through animating. One of the main problems was that sometimes the moving objects in the view panel to animate them wouldn't work so I had to change to the second method of animating. Another problem I encountered was the glitches that happened when animating the camera & some parts of the buildings disappeared. I managed to fix some of that problem by changing the focus & the range it could focus on. This seemed to fix most of the problems but not all as some glitches remained in the final edit.

When rendering I used Arnold as I found it suitable for this type of project, so I set the render settings up & which camera(s) I wanted to render & set it to render. When all my scenes were rendered I put them into After Effects to which I assembled my animation scenes. I did have to slow down some scenes after realising that I animated the camera too fast so I used time stretch to slow the frame speed. I added in my snow globe story to make the animation come full circle & to conclude the piece. 

As for sound effects I gathered what I felt would be best in a warehouse-like scenario so I added in a fan & an ominous ticking clock to make it seem eerie as you hear this loud ticking in the animation. The fan also served a purpose to make it eerie as I feel that the track sounded like it was an old fan which is an essential thing when making a creepy theme. I also used sleigh bells for the snow globe sound as I associate snow globes with Christmas which could also be the reason why the city inside the snow globe is covered in snow. I went into the attributes of the tracks to make them fade in & out to sync with the animation which I think made it better. I also cut part of the fan & clock sound to transfer it at the end of the animation as if the snowglobe sound only exists inside the snowglobe itself, or when it is shaken. After that I sent it to the media encoder to export is as 1280 x 720 in the format h.265 in best quality.

[mi4014amytaylorsteward]

Making Of Snow Globe Animation (Pt1): Modelling & Texturing

Once I finalised my plan I started on modelling the snow globe & buildings. I wanted to work in 2 separate files to not make the file too big. I started with the buildings first, modelling a few tests before I decided on the ones I liked best to move forward with. I used edge loops & the extrude tool quite a lot during the modelling process as it allowed me to make windows & ledges which made it seem more realistic. I duplicated the designs to make a small city with connecting roads. After that I UV mapped textures onto the buildings using online sources. I alternated the buildings textures between a concrete & brick texture to give contrast to the design. I made sure the texture was facing the right way up & not distorted using the UV editor & checker map (a guide for me to see if the texture will go on correctly). If it wasn’t I corrected it by going into planar UV mapping (or cylindrical depending on what was being UV mapped) & checked either the X, Y, or Z axis to apply onto the object. I found this part particularly tricky as there is quite a few things that can go wrong with UV mapping. There are a couple of ways to attempt UV mapping & when i eventually found out a method that worked for me it was a straight forward process. I used lambert & phong material settings according to what finish i wanted on the texture (lambert being a matte finish & phong a shiny finish).

After being happy with the design so far I started on the design of the snow globe. In a separate file I started with a cylinder & made the base using extrude & edge loops. I then used a sphere to make the glass part of the snow globe. I changed the colour of the sphere to a lighter grey/white & upped the transparency so that you can mostly see through it like glass. Then it was time to import the buildings. I put the buildings into groups in outliner so that the layers would be organised & then I scaled down the buildings group in size so that it would fit into the snow globe. I added a marble texture from another online source & inside the globe on the base I included a snow texture that was a material option in the program. Then I added another program texture as a bump map to create a rough surface like real snow. I did the same but in a darker colour for the road to simulate patchiness (like patches of melted snow) of the road. I organised the groups again so that the empty snow globe was a group, the buildings was a group & an overall group of both so that I can move both at the same time. I scaled it down & finished the snow globe. Halfway through modelling the snow globe I had an idea to make packaging for it too so I began modelling a cube into a box. I used the same technique I did with the sphere of the snow globe to create a see through plastic component of the packaging. I applied textures & text (including on the back which shows the 200 story of the snow globe which I thought was a nice touch).

Texture Sources

Pxhere (2017), available at: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1023628 (accessed date: 11/04/19)

Muangmoon, Pannawat (n.d.), Stock Photo - Modern brick wall background brick wall texturebrick wall texture, available at: https://www.123rf.com/photo_30450000_modern-brick-wall-background-brick-wall-texturebrick-wall-texture.html (accessed date: 11/04/19)

Kues1 (2017), Grunge wall texture Free Photo | Free Download, available at: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/grunge-wall-texture_1034776.htm (accessed date: 11/04/19)

Lost & Taken (n.d.), Scratched And Scraped Metal Texture, available at: https://lostandtaken.com/downloads/scratched-scraped-metal-texture-12/ (accessed date: 11/04/19)

Safseri (2013), old wall texture, available at: https://area.autodesk.com/downloads/old_wall_texture/ (accessed date: 11/04/19)

The Home Depot (n.d.), 8 in. x 10 in. Rogue Off-White Concrete Texture Wallpaper Sample, available at: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Brewster-8-in-x-10-in-Rogue-Off-White-Concrete-Texture-Wallpaper-Sample-2767-24438SAM/305046530 (accessed date: 20/04/19)

Textures.com (n.d), MetalRollup0148, available at: https://www.textures.com/download/metalrollup0148/110392 (accessed date: 20/04/19)

designworkz (n.d.), Vintage Retro Subtle Halftone Texture Backgrounds, available at: https://stock.adobe.com/nz/images/vintage-retro-subtle-halftone-texture-backgrounds/89222727 (accessed date: 20/04/19)

Textures.com (n.d.) AsphaltCloseups0113, available at: https://www.textures.com/download/asphaltcloseups0113/57738 (accessed date: 20/04/19)

Wayfair (n.d), Texture Trends II Flagstone 33' x 20.5" Slate Path Wallpaper Roll, available at: https://www.wayfair.ca/decor-pillows/pdx/brewster-home-fashions-texture-trends-ii-flagstone-33-x-205-slate-path-wallpaper-roll-bzh8249.html (accessed date: 25/04/19)

Murals Wallpaper (n.d.), Electric, available at: https://www.muralswallpaper.com/shop-murals/black-marble-wallpaper/ (accessed date: 25/04/19)

Rawpixel (n.d.), Pastel purple watercolor textured background vector, available at: https://www.rawpixel.com/image/597483/pastel-paint-background (accessed date: 25/04/19)

[mi4014amytaylorsteward]

Workshop: Textures/Rendering

In this workshop I learned about two important aspects in the 3D process; textures & rendering. To do this workshop I used a premade design to test out the render & textures. I first had to put lighting in as I want it to be visible in the render. There were various lighting options to choose from including ambient & directional light. After I placed them in the scene I made sure that the object could be seen in the render. It was not in the first test so I had to up the lighting intensity to make sure the light was bright enough to illuminate the object. I went for a more gloomy blue light to reflect on the object. I then went to hypershade to shade my object. I tried out different textures before deciding on a blue texture that I felt went well with the lighting I had placed in the scene. Overall I liked how the render turned out after doing little tweaks & felt this workshop was successful.

[mi4014amytaylorsteward]

A New 200 Word Story: The Snow Globe

The space is eerie. Empty & dull, it reflects the lives of its residents & the monotone world that they live in. They spend their days cooped up in their homes, their workplaces, living in their own little snow globes without ever “shaking it up a little”. Despite the close proximity of each towering buildings, it has never been so distant. The streets are barren. The people do not dare venture outside of their own world & thus not share it with others. So when the globe is finally shaken it’s a new sight to see when snow starts to fall gracefully, floating in the air like fragments of happiness. The snow seemed to make the statue-like world come alive even without a soul outside to marvel at the weather occurring. When a snow globe is shaken it reminds them to stop neglecting the world surrounding them & to stop at least for a moment to look at everything from a new perspective. It pulls them away from their own paths to stare at the snow fall. As the snow settles so do the people into their little realities just waiting for someone or something to shake their snow globes again so that we may pull ourselves away from the dull normality & enjoy the sudden change every once in a while.

[mi4014amytaylorsteward]

Snow Globe Idea Plan

This is the idea plan & design for my snow globe animation. I put in an idea for packaging so that I can have the option to design it if I want to change the scene design a little. I labelled what I plan to use for textures so I have a guide on where to start. T storyboard shows how I plan to execute my animation which will guide me in the animation process. This