In this assignment we were asked to download one of the Max Rigs then go on Internet and find fascial expressions and try to replicate them with a Max Rig. I downloaded the Max Rig not the lowmax one and i noticed that it was missing couple controllers like one for eyebrow's wasn't working and also there were no controllers for eyelids. So considering this some of the expressions are a bit weird didn't really get them to line up the right way but i had to improvise with what i had.
*NOTE
The creator of the Rig stated that the Rig is fully functional however you shouldn't merge the file with an already existing scene due to the problems with IK name etc etc. However i did this when i was animating the lift clip and for this assignment i opened up a fresh file so i don't know how the problem persisted. I deleted the scene and the Rig thinking it might have affected the Rig file it self so i downloaded a new one but its the same thing there. Think next time i do this im just gonna download the LowMax Rig instead.
onsdag 21. januar 2015
Digital Acting
Part 4
In this assignment we were asked to go back to our previous assignment and give it another look after reading about poses and watching Keith Lango's video. We were suppose to try and improve the poses in the existing animation but first start off with noting down some of the idea's how to improve the poses make them more convincing.
Blocking Animation:
So far what ive learned is that my poses are quiet robotic like it just lacks the personality. You can clearly see what hes doing but you don't see a trace of human "expression" you might say. Like the sphere suppose to be heavy and you can't see anything here by looking at my pictures that would suggest or hint that the object is heavy. Also one thing i forgot to type down on the picture is by making his legs quiver while hes lifting the object that would give you some information about the object and the character giving it more personality.
In this assignment we were asked to document every part of our Animation method so the teacher's know what experience everyone is on and basically polish our skills here and there.
And it's not just to show others but also your self and maybe after a while you can come back and look how far you've come. Since this is an online course you might say, you would want to put up a schedule to keep up a track on the time for the longer assignment or projects. My self like a lot other people tend to get too much into details and lose track of time making a hell for myself in the end of the projects and assignment. So for that simple reason i always start with a plan and work from there and usually i end up with some extra time to give my work extra touch here and there. Since this isn't an actual project where we have to do into all godly details from scratch i'm going to leave out details like creating 3d figure and how to put in bones etc. I'm going to start of with the planning...
The breakdown:
Organize
Research
Executing sketching/blocking/animating
Tweak/Polishing
Documenting
Research:
I've gone through some of the forum posts, blogs just to get an idea how those before me have done it and it's nothing out of the ordinary. So i started with checking out some heavy weight lifting animations on YouTube for starters and from there i tried to find a real video of a human lifting a spherical object and this is where i found this video which is perfect. The guy explains pretty much everything in detail how to pose and how to lift the object correctly. But i didn't stop there so i went on Google to search up some lifting poses that were drawn and i found this picture which is perfect cause it fits this guys video it's the same lifting method. Saw that others used the same example for their assignments i appreciate the guy who pointed out this video it just brilliant!
Anyways these are few of example pictures i found on Google that i would use to make a smooth flow of animation if i had to make a rendered out version.
This picture show exactly the same lifting method as in the video above perfectly showing the executed lifting loop. However i don't think i would have used all of those frames, well it depends on really how detailed you want the animation to be really. If this was a project i would definitely use all frame but also put in in between's to make it even more smoother.
Next picture shows pretty much the same thing except it's with a rigged standard dummy which i actually think might be from an old student. Not entirely sure, i got it while i was searching on Google but that's what the internet is for right?
I've seen previous students use Digital Tutor and they stumbled on same issue as me. Most of the stuff is either in Maya or some other programs i don't recognize. When it comes to Maya it's pretty close to 3D Max but since i don't have the access to Digital Tutors i had to use Lynda. And that's where i had a problem cause a lot of the tutorials over there are simply in other programs that are different if you compare it with 3D Studio Max so i had to find my way on YouTube.
Sketch:
Back to the Sketches, i did my research that i needed now it was time for the animation it self. I've made a Sketch which i was going to follow or should i say use as and example for my animation more or less.
Blocking:
These are the keyframes for the lifting cycle from my Animation i didn't follow my Sketches entirely to the point however i just went with it and the flow/timing was not that bad considering i hardly touched Curve Editor.
Tweaking: This is how my Timeline looks like, I tried to tweak or adjust the animation with inbetweens so the timing in the animation was a bit smoother.
I barely adjusted anything in the Curve Editor since i don't remember much about it!
Conclussion:
Animating is a struggle for me to a small degree, but the worst part for me is "fine tuning" the animation fixing the timeline in Curve Editor. In order for me to progress in this area i simply have to work more on my Animation timing in the editor. I feel like i'm just making it so much harder for my self when it comes to editing in the Curve editor. It's blank page for me even in the past I struggled a lot with it, haven't done much in it this time.
Must say, my Curve Editor looks awfully alike London Underground system definitely need to work more on it. I have been trying to look up tutorials on YouTube found couple of them which might help me in the future. I'm also trying to get my hands on couple of those books but it seems the only way to get them is by ordering online.
Anyways to summarize the assignment first thing i did was to put up a plan and get familiar with the assignment. When that was done i went on the internet and researched as much as it was needed in order for me to start on the Sketches. Once i sketched out my animation and had a decent storyboard i could follow i started on the Animation. When the Animation was finished the only thing that was left was tweaking and adjusting the timing on the Animation.
Part 02 Storytelling Poses
Picking out the Keyframes:
To start of what is a keyframe you might ask?
It's a drawing that defines the beginning and end point of a smooth animation or film transition. Those drawing are called "frames" cause of their position in time is measured in frames on a film strip. Sequence of key frames defines movements that the viewers will see on a film, video or animation defines the timing of the movement.
In this assignments we were asked to either study the GIF animation above or any of the other animation clips below and pick out the keystory telling poses. I however choose to go with this Wolf/axe animation which is from the book "Illusion of Life: Disney Animation" which is written by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson while the drawing is by Fred Moore. Since i don't have the book i had to study the GIF and the collection of images really closely for the keyframe.
Sequence:
I have crossed of the poses that i think are the Keyframes and put a number in which order the whole animation cycle goes, not entirely sure its 100% correct thou. One of the main "tell tale" signs you might say is in the word it self "keyframe (key storytelling pose)" the pose thats explain the action the most. I don't know how to explain it detailed but if you study the sequence you get a hunch what are the keyframes. Most likely some of my keyframes are wrong since ive seen couple other students with different keyframes maybe not. I felt pretty sure that the ones i picked were the right ones.
As for the sequence i have put up numbers in which order i think it goes, studied the GIF and the sequence and i can definitely tell you that the collection of the picture are not in correct sequential order. I'm not sure mine is either to be honest but ive tried and i found out that the hat on the character was quiet helpful it could tell you what the next motion was kinda.
Methods in context:
So going through other students work i'm not that far off i can definitely see some resemblance here and there. The animation keyframes are different from student to student, take for example my keyframes i have positioned them in fives but i have also put keyframes here and there where i felt like the poses needed to be more visible or kinda explain the situation better. Also i gave the animation smoother transitions with inbetweens which helped cause i basically didn't use Curve Editor that much.
Some students counted the key positions in thirds and fives like previous students mentioned while there were some who didn't do that at all and just put the key's where they felt like it should be. In the future if i work with a group i will have to do this better cause my keyframes on timeline were chaotic and when i tried to smooth the transitions in Curve Editor i was just overwhelmed by the graphs i was getting. I don't know i was basically also looking at what other did before me and i think that made me start second guessing my self. Probably should have ran with my own thing and hoped for the best cause in the beginning i was quiet confident that i was doing it right. I mean even back when i was at Noroff we were keyframing on every five frames.
Further on ive also seen people used the stepped mode and some were using linear method to adjust timing on their animation which just made their animation much smoother. I didn't use this but next time i'm going to cause at the moment im pretty much clueless when it comes to the Curve Editor.
There was also some difference in how people started to animate and how they excuted the whole thing, like there were some student who animated in the keyframe positions and then they animated in the inbetweens. Which was then again followed by editing in the Curve Editor and in the end one last polishing touch to finishe it all off. I was doing a pretty similar technique except i did it all in one go. I didnt animate the keyframe first but i did everything at same time and then when i felt like that transitions had to be more smoother i put in more inbetweens. I wasnt too happy cause i wasn't done by that i mean i should have gone through it with Curve Editor to give it last touches.
Anways to end this i would just like to say that my current problem is the Curve Editor i just don't know it enough to put it to good use. I'm going to read up on it and see if the tutorial videos i found help out so next time we do this again i can try out the Curve Editor.
I have to say that this is the first time i encounter this type of animation so my first reaction would be somewhere along the lines of art that's the first thing that pop's in my head.
For some reason i don't like it and i find it pretty annoying to watch maybe that's the whole point of it, who knows?
Like i said this is the typical type of animation you would expect to see in Art galleries cause it would only appeal to certain type of people not everyone would enjoy this. And its because of the style its kinda rough and more appealing to adults you might say.
Fantasmagorie 1908:
This reminds me of some of the early Disney cartoons, i have also seen it in like old movies about the 1940's and they show this kinda of stuff in theaters. Should also mention animation documentary ones that show how it all started this is kinda like the start of animation age you might say!
I liked this little animation movie cause it shows how people use to make animation back in the old days and how its not so different from how we do it today. The progress going from a drawing board everything is the same the quality and executing the animation might be different. But before you can start making stuff in 3D programs you still have to draw the story-line on a drawing board.
Type of this animation is mainly seen in documentaries about cartoons or in old animation movies from the 1900. I mean its not steamboat Willie either but it's even earlier then that. So you would expect finding this in old movies, documentaries about how it all started or even in a cartoon/animation museum, i wouldn't be surprise if you found something like this in Disney's museum.
Cafe Serre 2009:
Typical student movie i can definitely relate to this type of short movies as made couple of those myself in the past.
Funny short animation film with a good pace i liked it, was well execute and the quality is pretty good. Only thing i would complain about are the facial expression of the cop character, which are pretty minimal in this movie. They should have gone and overdone it as these animations films are much better and more clear to read when characters expressions are more shown. But i mean i wouldn't down-rate it just cause of that it was still funny but if they wanted to adjust it abit more the facial expressions would be the cherry on the top.
You would expect to see this type of animation movie on the internet or on TV (if it was longer) but this is typical student work cause of it duration. The quality it self is pretty good which would make it TV worthy it's funny, colorful and non-violent which makes it perfect for kids. And i wouldn't hesitate to say that it would appeal to grown ups even.
Pocoyo 2007:
This is the same kinda type of animation as Cafe Serre except this is clearly a studio produced animation movie made for kids. There's no doubt about that this belongs on TV and i have seen couple of similar animation movies like this could mention that its become more and more popular. You barely see any of those drawing animated movies anymore like Lion king or Atlantis now it's all about Shrek and Ice Age type of animations.
Pocoyo was okay nothing to like or dislike since i don't any interest in these types of animated films there is just one thing i dont get and thats the human character. Why does he keep on jumping on his head i mean this show is made for kids, why would you give a kid the idea of jumping on his head?
Context of this animated film would be on TV like kid hour i don't know the right name since i barely watch English television. But it's main viewers would kid's even thou there are some sceens which i find pretty weird.
Cyber Evolution 2007:
Can't say for sure that i have seen anything like this before but i think i have seen something similar on TV, the intro of the TV show "Big bang theory" has this kinda a thing with human evolution. Which is kinda like this starts in same way and just keep on going to the final state, that's the first thing that came to my mind.
I have to say that i liked this short film the soundtrack was perfectly matched with the animation and the film it self was very fascinating. There's this artistic side to it and it kinda mesmerizes you can't really describe it better then that.
Have to say that this does belong in a Art gallery but it also would works as a really awesome intro for a TV show or something. It has this artistic side which is why i said it belonged in a art gallery but it also has this intro kinda feeling which is why it could also work as a intro for a computer science tv show.
Toyota / APT Prod. 2006
This is a typical animated commercial which you almost see daily on TV to make you feel good for driving a Prius and everyone who doesn't make them feel like crap.
I don't like commercial but then again i dont watch much tv, i mean who loves commercials in general unless its something about hot chicks or something funny? :) Anyways back to this commercial it's pretty good cause you clearly get the message from the commercial. I liked how they executed this commercial they knew what they wanted to focus on and they did so through the whole commercial and still got the message out to the audience.
Not much to say or debate here it's clearly TV material or maybe car shop.
Finding the connection
There is a clear relation between the short film "Cafe Serre" and the work i have done in the past while i was studying. We had this project can't entirely remember the name of it but it had something to do with police and gangsters. Thing that caught my eye in Cafe Serre was the fact that it was happening in a Cafe kinda like in our short film and it was the same quality similar characters. Also the fact that they didn't overdo the facial expression is also another thing which we did as well and then the teacher told us to make it more obvious.
The fact that its a student short film is another thing i can relate to, it doesn't matter if it's not perfect you learn from your mistakes i know we did.
Future 3D Film Production
This is what i had in mind as an example for a short film i wanna create something that either make people laugh or gives them goose bumps. This is what i want to aim for it doesn't have to be some studio quality short film, just as long i can do good animation and at same time bring the message to the audience. I've always loved making people laugh and that's just who i am a part of my personality and i want to have the ability to bring that into my animation!
For me this whole idea started back in 2011 while i still was attending private art school in Bergen called KIB. I got to the point where i was sitting there trying to do something but nothing came to my mind and eventually i got fed up with it. There was such big difference between me and other students there and i'm not talking about experience wise but style wise. Something they would consider "art" i just couldn't, the stuff we were doing there was just so far from what i wanted. After a year i had enough of it, talked with some friends did a bit research and that's when i started to look for a new school.
I've always liked drawing since i was a kid always been the creative type drawing on everything i could get my hands on. But what fascinated me the most was when i saw all those 3D Animated movies around on Youtube and other sites like 3Dtotal that's when decided to enroll into Noroff by little help from friend's who already went to Noroff. My biggest challenge was when i started the only program i was familiar with was Photoshop haven't even touched any of the 3d programs. After a year at Noroff everything changed i had suddenly the tools to work in several 3d programs and i was getting somewhere.
Huge fan of video games like most of the people applying to Noroff but the only difference was i never wanted to create the games them self but more something towards working with cinematic stuff. CG in games and movies is what i was going towards and concept designs i don't know how to describe it but that's what caught my interest of the whole process in 3D.
I've worked with following programs this far:
3DS Max
Maya
MudBox Houdini (very little) Photoshop AE
Sony Vegas Pro Vray Mentalray Quixel DDO (a bit)
On side i have also been working on some unrelated projects with my father in Solidworks where we were making designs and blueprints files in SprutCAM for a CNC drill machine.
Besides all the Disney movies and i'm talking about old ones which look amazing and look so before their time one that is my favorite is probably Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within from 2001 which just look AMAZING. The quality is crazy good even for todays standard but that was made back in 2001 which makes it even more impressive.
My favorite animated Character would probably be Sid from "Ice Age" cause hes hilarious especially if the movie is in Norwegian cause this Sid character has this thick Bergen dialect which makes the character so much more alive and funnier. When it comes to studios i don't really have any favorite but if i had to choose it would most definitely be Ubisoft cause they have some of the sickest CG cinematic around there. This is just one of them that i found to be really amazing first time i watched it i got goose bumps, make sure you pump up the volume and enjoy :) :
¨
After couple years of 3D Design and Animation studies i definitely look at animation movies differently appreciate them more now then before. Simply cause i understand how much hard work has been put into those movies to bring the best quality to the audience. Before i didn't care as much about it didn't even think about how much hard work went into these movies and i probably thought it was easily done. I know much more about 3D in general and how it's industry works then before and have learned to appreciate it more. And it's just like my previous teacher said in order to be successful at something you have to learn from your mistakes! I'm truly looking forward to start and i hope it gonna be a good year!
