Kris's 3D Animation Blog

Month: May 2025

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Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques George's Class Term 3

Week 6: Adv&Exp [George’s Class]

Class Content

Animating Dialogue (Blocking)

Most important thing is the vowels, the rest of the letters are there to help shape those vowels

When talking, it isn’t just the lips moving to create the sounds: tongue, lips, jaw, teeth, and vocal chords all go into this as well. Furthermore, these parts moving are followed by the rest of the face as the skin and muscles stretch and contract (eg nostrils, cheeks, etc).

The tip of your nose typically moves along as people talk, very subtle most of the time, but you will see it if you pay attention.

Phonemes: “smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word (or word element) from another, as the element p in “tap”, which separates that word from “tab”, and “tan”.

When we talk our jaw moves up and down, and the corners of our lips move in and out, these two things being the primary main movements to convey sound.

This week’s assignment:

  • Blocking pass: keys and breakdowns only

The week after will be blocking plus, so just put the essential keys to convey the idea for this week.

3/4 perspective view, stepped keys only.

Week 5 Assignment: Final Body Mechanics + Acting Plan

I again had the issue where I really struggled to get one reference with all the elements I wanted. I did enjoy making the planning sheet, and it was a good exercise to really get into the mindset of the character I’m animating.

Final Body Mechanics + Acting Plan Feedback:

Body Mechanics:

  • Hold the pose at 192 (when the character stands up and notices the audience/camera) until about 205
  • The transition following these feels a little odd, so could do with some tweaking
  • As she bows, the hips lock a bit so try to keep them moving

Acting Reference Footage:

  • Recommended going with reference no.3, as the cup shouldn’t go up and down as it does in no.1. No.3 and no.1 could be combined though to avoid the cup issue

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques Serra's Class Term 3

Week 6: Adv&Exp [Serra’s Class]

Class Content

I wasn’t in class this week unfortunately, but I was able to catch up with some of the content which for this week was around projection mapping. I recently went to see a projection mapping on the Battersea Power Station with some friends, so learning how this could be done was fascinating. As I’ve said previously for other techniques, this could be a really cool way to have a unique showreel piece using 3D animated characters or creatures, but I would need to put some thought into how to do so in a way that would work in a showreel. Maybe having a character interacting with the space they are projected onto could be an interesting exploration of the medium and demonstration of my skills in a different way to the standard showreel piece I usually see in 3D Animator reels.

Project Progression

I managed to make a small start on the concepts for Rahela’s clothing in photoshop, using the rig as a base for the drawings and the previously shown visual research as reference.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques Serra's Class Term 3

Week 5: Adv&Exp [Serra’s Class]

I unfortunately missed last weeks lesson/feedback session due to health issues. I’m still dealing with that, so the project hasn’t progressed since my last post unfortunately.

Class Content

This week a few of us did mocap. I was able to capture various pieces of data, which I’m hoping to use for 3D animation pieces over the summer. Since mocap data cleanup would be good to have in my showreel if I apply to any VFX houses after graduation I have wanted to capture some of my own to have for a while now but I haven’t been able to get round to it, so this was a great opportunity.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques George's Class Term 3

Week 5: Adv&Exp [George’s Class]

Class Content:

Polish/Detail Pass:

Make sure IK/FK switches are smooth, and there’s no popping

Make sure animation is following nice arcs. Might need to animate on 1s/key certain parts of body every frame to achieve this

Make sure scene/props are set up at this point

Intro to Acting:

Jeff Gabor: Animator, very animated in his reference footage, great acting. George showed us some of his progressing showreels. He’s also good at animating women, and has clearly paid close attention to the small details of how women move and talk compared to men. With newer animators, it tends to be easier for people to act out reference and animate with characters of their own gender, since its what people know better.

You need a break in the line/in the acting, can’t just be one emotion through an unbroken monologue

Even if parts of body aren’t fully visible to camera, you should still roughly (at least) animate them to make rest of body more believable. If I adjust my feet when standing, the rest of my body will follow.

When starting this shot, some things to consider:

  • What is happening with the character before the shot that leads into this one?
  • We should know our dialogue by heart by next week, as we should be really familiarising ourselves to it in detail
  • Reference is absolutely needed, even if we’re taking our sound from a clip of something
  • We shouldn’t just recreate the scene our sound is from, we should be adding our own spin on it

This week’s assignment:

  1. Final polish on body mechanics
  2. Audio clip we will be using added to filmed reference
  3. Plan sheet (example below)

Close up shot, chest up, 1 character only.

Avoid overacting in reference, don’t move around too much.

Blue line is the sort of wave the sounds takes, emphasis on different words, etc

Come up with a little bio for the character we will be portraying to give some direction for how we animate them

Week 4 Assignment: Polish 1

I had an easier time this week compared to last week with the spline and polishing, but it was definitely still challenging. I keep running into the same issue where the animation ends up looking quite janky and jittery. I tried to follow the advice of working from the core outwards to avoid some of this, but I found it still happened a fair bit and took a while to fix. When I have more free time I would like to go through a few quick shots and work on improving this issue.

I do really like how the body movement on the opening stumble improved from last week, that portion of the shot already feels heaps better.

Polish 01 Feedback:

  • Track the arcs of the hands on the shot opening, and make them more satisfying
  • The arcs of the hips and chest during the fall could be improved, would be good to have them go up for a few frames before curving downwards
  • The elbows and knees should be locked when weight is being put on them, currently they wobble around the floor a fair bit when the character is pushing themselves up after the fall
Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques George's Class Term 3

Week 4: Adv&Exp [George’s Class]

This week’s assignment:

Polish the spline animation

Week 3 Assignment: Splined Animation

I really struggled splining this shot, and I do wish I had added a lot more poses into the blocking before splining to avoid having to redo a fair bit of the animation. I do like the overall progression of the shot though, and I’m hoping to have it looking a lot better by next week with some polish work.

Spline Feedback:

  • Track the arc of the hips as character stumbles into shot. Arcs should look like bouncing ball arcs to reflect the heavy landing of the body with the stumble as apposed to more gentle arcs seen when walking
  • During the fall, rotate the body and legs upwards more so upper body really gets ahead of the legs
  • Fall could also be quicker, at least for the upper body
  • Have her start raising a little earlier after the fall
  • Peel the body off the floor, with her head lagging behind for a while
  • Could remove the first pause where she notices the camera/audience, have the pushing/standing up be more continuous to help it feel less clunky
  • As she stands, again have the head and neck lag behind
  • As she bows, have a leading hand that reaches the chest faster, with the other spaced out more. Then have them swap since the previously non leading hand will be on top, so it can move into the final position faster this time
Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques Serra's Class Term 3

Week 3: Adv&Exp [Serra’s Class]

Class Content

This week we learnt about NDisplays, which are used to render videos for irregularly shaped screens such as those seen wrapped around buildings. It was interesting to learn about the process within UE5 as beforehand I had only seen the process done in other programs and in different ways. I’m unlikely to use the technique for my current project, but I have considered if I could use the technique with some 3D animated characters as a cool and unique shot for my showreel, while also looking into the differences in how 3D animation is done for such projects.

Project Progress

I haven’t made a huge amount of progress on the practical side of things, but I have gathered a lot of visual research to reference when I start designing the clothing. Focusing on the main character, I have taken inspiration from both traditional Romanian (and other similar eastern European traditional wear) clothing alongside techwear/cyberpunk clothing. Reflecting on the various aspects from both clothing types, I think having the clothes shaped like techwear/cyberpunk clothing but with colours, patterns, textures, and detailing from traditional Romanian wear will work best, but I will still play around with different combinations when I begin the concepts.

I also took the rig I will be using for Rahela and took screenshots of a neutral pose at various angles that I can draw over for the concepts.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques George's Class Term 3

Week 3: Adv&Exp [George’s Class]

This week’s assignment:

Finish up blocking this week, apply the feedback, then go to splined for next week.

Week 2 Assignment: Blocking Plus (+ Redone planning)

I replanned my shot and redid the blocking. I was able to reuse a couple of the poses from last week since the start was the same. Reflecting now, I do wish I had pushed myself even more, but I still learnt a lot and I’ll want to do more body mechanic exercises and shots in my own time anyway so I can push myself more then.

I do need to get better at shooting reference, as I always struggle to capture all the elements I like into one shot so I end up with multiple references. This isn’t terrible, but does mean I end up pulling from multiple clips and then having to match up certain movements later.

Blocking Plus Feedback:

  • Have the character come in a lot more strongly, really stretch back the arms and arc the spine
  • Currently the character catches herself a bit too well before falling, the way she steps down looks like she should be able to avoid falling. Have body angled backwards more just before step down and then have her quickly leaning too far forward
  • Keep the second step down closer to the first foot, again to make it look like she isn’t able to balance herself
  • Arc the body more as she falls, create some nice lines of action
  • Be mindful of her upper body making impact first, with the head and hips hitting next, then the upper legs, then the lower legs
  • Twist the body as she is pushing up with different hands. As she pushes with one hand, that same shoulder should be raised with the pressure of the push upwards, with the other shoulder dropping as that arm hangs looser
  • Bend toes more as feet push up
  • When she stands, have torso straighten sooner and knees bent a little
  • Add some difference to the angles of the body in the pose before she bows, tilt shoulders one way and hips the other
  • During the bow have variation in arms and hands, they look too mirrored at the moment
  • Have the shot end with the character centre stage, she’s too far to the side

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques Serra's Class Term 3

Week 2: Adv&Exp [Serra’s Class]

Class Content

This week we were experimenting with Virtual Production Cameras within UE5. A few of us had some technical issues setting up the app in class, so I tried it on my home PC where having access to my home wifi seemed to help. We used the ‘Unreal VCam‘ app on our phones and connected this to a virtual production scene in UE5. While I found the process very cool and useful for VFX style production, I am unsure how much I will use the process in my own work. I would like to research the use of it more to see how I might be able to make use of it, but for my current project ideas the cameras are either hand animated or physically held and then tracked for compositing purposes.

Project Progress

I started doing some visual research for ideas, and based on project ideas Serra mentioned last week I also considered window sets seen in store fronts.

My idea for my FMP is based in a futuristic cyberpunk version of London, so incorporating punk themes to this project feels suitable. Above are some cool window sets I found and liked the vibe of, including some punky ones and one of a runway show with punk/alternative themes.

I also did some visual research for cool unique digital media styles that I could potentially experiment with, both for animation and otherwise.

When I showed some of these things to Serra today, she suggested I could potentially have different window sets in different visual styles, which would allow for me to experiment with multiple styles in one project. I do really like this idea, but I later realised this might take a lot of time depending on how long the Marvelous Designer side of things takes me.

I think the next steps for me will be figuring out the scope of the project overall, and designing some clothes to make in Marvelous Designer.