Kris's 3D Animation Blog

Tag: Week 7

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

Week 7: Adv&Exp [Serra’s Class]

Class Content

This week we were shown 360 videos. After creating animation for AR in term 2, I have wanted to improve on traditional 3D character/creature animation implementation with 360 output, as I wasn’t satisfied with the results due to the differences in how the animation is viewed not being considered as part of the process. However overall it isn’t one of my current primary interests, so this will most likely be a passion project I do in the future outside of showreel work.

Project Progress

I’ve still been struggling to make much progress, and I am currently debating the schedule for both this project and my FMP with the limitations I am now realising more.

While I want to create cool visuals alongside 3D Animation showreel pieces, I lack a lot of the technical skills needed to understand even what is possible for my project, let alone how to do it. It is a bit overwhelming with the time constraints, and I’m starting to think it might be best to focus more on learning Marvelous Designer for this project so I don’t overload myself.

As for the wider picture, including FMP development, it would be worth sitting down with friends of mine who work in industry in (what I would consider compared to myself) much more technical roles. I feel that sharing my ideas and thoughts with them and asking for feedback on the concepts will help me better plan what is feasible for me to do for my FMP.

Ultimately with my current health issues in the mix, I feel the need to cut back my current projects and push some of my FMP concerns to the backburner until after this term’s submission. While I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to achieve as much as I wanted to this semester, I would rather cut back and still have enough space to learn Marvelous Designer and create some clothing concepts than overload myself and only manage to do the bare minimum work and learn very little.

In regard to the clothing concepts, I have drawn out two more tops and I’m trying to get the shape down for the trousers. I’m finding it quite difficult to design the techwear pants, with the shape being very difficult for me to capture in a way I like.

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

Week 7: Adv&Exp [George’s Class]

This week’s assignment:

  • Blocking plus

Week 6 Assignment: Blocking Pass

I really enjoyed blocking out this shot, especially with the lessons I learnt from the previous body mechanics shot. I also enjoy lip sync in general, and with the added knowledge from last weeks class I like how the blocking came out. It feels a little chattery, but I think that will be easier to see and fix when I get to spline as I wouldn’t want to scale things back now and have to rebuild those same keys during spline.

Blocking Pass Feedback:

  • In general, make the face more asymmetric (raise one eyebrow more than other, have one corner of mouth lifted/stretched out more, have head tilted but brows/mouth tilting opposite way, etc)
  • On the beginning of the speech (frame 58, “so”) have the head turned more to the side so when the lips are pouted its visible in the silhouette
  • Have body moving into the flow of the speech, so have the body lift and sink at certain points following the tone
  • On “sacrifice?” have body sink into this, as the character’s emotion begins to switch
  • Could have him go to take a sip of his drink during dialogue pause, but stop and then slam cup down. It shows how erratic the character and his actions are in this moment
  • Body should go down with the cup and only lift after the cup makes impact, not on the impact
  • On the “Eh” of “everything”, push the expression more to really show that rage
  • In general, keep mouth shapes more simple and boxy, as it keeps them readable
  • The outer ends of the brows shouldn’t move nearly as much as the inner and middle portions, so keep an eye out for that

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Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques Previs Term 2

Week 7: Previs

Previs Development:

While I struggled a bit to get all of the remaining shots blocked out in 3D, I managed to do so and I was also able to get 2 shots to blocked animation, which I’m happy with. With Shot 0120, I like how much personality the smaller male character has, but it does mean the lack of which in the middle character is more distracting. I really like how Shot 0180 came out, but I do want to improve on the posing and pacing a lot more when it comes to fully animating that shot.

Previs Feedback:

  • For Shot 0020, the background needs to be more populated, even if its just boxes for now
  • Shot 0010/0030/0050/0070 have the same problem where the background is too plain. Something needs to be going on around the character, otherwise it feels too dull (especially with the earlier shots where the camera is so far back most of the screen is empty space)
  • These Shots also should be of the main character stand in rig (the smaller female one)
  • In Shot 0120, add in the main character or someone else walking on other side of sword guy. Have their movement/personality contrast with hyperactive guy on the right
  • For the same shot and for the following shot [this isn’t in the storyboard, but file for this shot names it as Shot 0125] have the middle guy turn his head and react to the hyperactive guy coming into his view, as currently its weird that he doesn’t react at all
  • As the hammer impacts with the ground in Shot 0130, have the camera shake and pan downwards a little bit as if the viewer is feeling the impact. This will also allow for nicer framing at the wolf runs out of the smoke
  • For Shot 0170, have the wolf do much more of a dramatic turn as it enters, as if it can barely control itself with how fast it is moving. Follow this with more of a body swing as it impacts the wall rather than all of the body hitting at once
  • Work on the posing in Shot 0180. The body should be a lot more tilted back before the character swings her weapon, and the arm should lag behind more as her body twists into the swinging motion. Again, try experimenting with the Maya viewport FX pack to add some nice motion lines to the weapon swing
  • In Shot 0200, have the wolf’s head/body turned a little so it isn’t completely side on. It will feel more dynamic

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3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Animation Term 1

Week 7: Animation

This week we splined our blocked out walk cycle and started adding details in.

Side Step Spline Feedback:

Feedback from George:

  • Focus on the timing of the ball, give it more ease in and out both just before it follows the screen left foot on the side step, and as it holds balance over the left foot after the step (as the right foot is still moving over)
  • Have the feet touching the ground faster at the end of their movement
  • Have the side of the feet touch down first and then quickly touch down fully

Walk Cycle plan and blocked animation feedback:

Feedback from George:

  • Have the toes flap as they follow through on the movement of the foot
  • Make the heel of the foot touch down, then the main foot with the toe still up, then the whole foot touching down, each on a frame
  • On the front view, push the ball movement along the x axis more. May need to adjust the y translation followed by the x rotation accordingly
  • On frame 4, the space between the legs might be a tad too big (try reducing it and see how it feels), and the toe of the back foot should still be flat on the ground
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Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language Term 1

Week 7: Design for Animation, Narrative Structures & Film Language

Narrative Structure and Character Role

This week we looked at different use cases of narrative structure and, going back to last weeks lecture, how Mise-en-Scène is used to convey narrative. For example, we were shown a chase scene where the characters are always crossing the scene from left to right, to convey the chase continuing even as the setting and time changes (aka, narrative continuity).

We also looked at editing, and how there isn’t as much (at least not in the same sense) editing in animation vs live acton, since animation shots are often much more pre planned down to the frame length, whereas live action cameras can keep rolling after the shot end time which the director may choose to do for various reasons.

This lecture was another great source of language and research for my own topic, since narrative structures have always been fascinating to me and I would love to focus on researching the use of them within my topic.

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3D Computer Animation Fundamentals Immersion Term 1

Week 7: Immersion

Project Progression:

In Maya, I posed some of the ‘Body Mechanics Rigs‘ (created by Joe Daniels) in the subway train. I then imported these into UE5 so I could set up the cameras there, and export the cameras back into Maya for animating. While convoluted, I found setting up the cameras in Maya less intuitive than in UE5, and I think overall I saved time as setting them up in UE5 was quick and easy when also using my storyboard sketches as reference.

I then set up each key shot (the shots I consider necessary to convey my project idea) in Maya with the Apollo rig referenced in. I had already deform wrapped the clothes to the skin of the rig and hidden the faces beneath the clothes, and saved this as a separate scene to be referenced in.

Before I got ahead of myself, I wanted to test the pipeline I had planed out to import the animation into UE5. From previous research, I decide to export the rig geometry as an alembic. I did a very rough animation for shot 0070, and exported this for the test. However for the materials on the rig, I misunderstood how these would transfer in and found that while the materials did import, they all showed as black. I put this aside to fix later, and I was then able to set up the alembic in the sequencer and see that, other than the materials, the alembic import would work as I planned.

For the materials it was a little convoluted but again, would save time later, to recreate all the materials in UE5, make sure the names of the UE5 materials matched the Shading Group node of the materials in Maya, and (while I couldn’t 100% confirm this was necessary, it works as desired) assigned the materials to the geometry faces rather than the object as a whole. I also had to make sure to assign the hidden faces a unique material that, in UE5, was transparent or “invisible”.

While I was already planning on switching out the subway train materials for my own, seeing the Apollo rig in the level gives me an even bigger urge to do so, as the contrast between realism and stylised stands out far too much to me.