University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Sound and Visualization
Monday, 8 May 2017
CT5SOVIS - Music Video Sequences
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Sound and Visualization
Before starting the music video project, I went through a lot of ideas with my partner. It was hard to settle for a song, or an idea, but we finally decided to create a video about a poor girl that lives in the city and wants to escape into another world.
The worlds are very different in many aspects. The first one is dark and bleak, while the second one is bright and calm. The first world is made out of sharp, straight objects while the other one is filled with painterly, organic shapes.
Some of our main sources of inspiration were Mohammad Fikree's short animated films like Girl & It.
After getting the basic layouts from my classmate, I decided to work on the first world, and the rig of the girl.
The scenes that I have created relied on the use of parallax so I made sure to separate all the layers.
The following video shows the sequences that I have made:
CT5SOVIS - Out of this world
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Sound and Visualization
As part of my coursework, I have decided to work on a commission, for the Out of this world theater. During the production I worked on a few different scenes, that were going to be projected on walls.
After receiving the necessary templates, I made a few test animations. I experimented with both 2D and 3D. To add 3D objects into the scene I used the Element 3D plugin for After Effects. The wood texture that I have used was temporary and was taken from the internet.
Meanwhile I have also been asked to create two more scenes. One which was supposed to include moving lights that resembled scanners and another one in which a number of laser beams would appear and create a tile-pattern on the walls. I tried to avoid using any plugins so I used the stroke and glow effects.
After receiving feedback on the room movement, I decided to create my own 3D room model in Maya. Because of the actual shape of the set, I had to change the room model in the later versions, minding the gap in the back.
The final task has been to create a composition for the moment when the actor was going to spin in the outer space. After I created some custom clouds i Photoshop, I managed to mimic a 3D effect by warping the corners of the video. The background textures of the galaxy were taken from the internet.
Sunday, 7 May 2017
CT5ANIGP - Character Performance Rendered
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Animation Group Project
With little time left, I have set 3 computers to render at the university, but unfortunately they didn't finish before the weekend of the deadline. The quality changes throughout the film because some of the frames were rendered at home, at a lower quality.
Playblast:
Rendered:
Playblast:
Rendered:
With color correction and game menu:
CT5ANIGP - Character Performance Animation
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Animation Group Project
Animating the performance proved to be very tedious, due to all the issues that I ran into.
Because the rigs were old, and had so many nodes that weren't present in the newer versions of Maya, they were crashing each time I was trying to play the animation. Optimizing the scene proved to be useless. I also have tried saving the scenes as Maya ASCII, but I couldn't figure out how to delete the faulty code. Without any other solution available, I had to send the rigs to my tutor. All these problems have delayed me by almost two weeks, putting me in a very difficult situation.
Initially I wanted to have a fixed camera, to capture the whole performance of the characters, but because of the shortened time period in which I had to finish the film, I decided to work 'economically' and change the camera angles strategically.
When I finally started animating with the fixed rigs, I noticed that the preview was lagging, and the IKs weren't working properly for Mery. At first I blocked in the main poses and carried on, and started animating Malcom, while 'hiding' the other character.
Because Mery wasn't working properly I decided to search for answers online. The problem was that the Evaluation mode, in the Animation settings menu, was set to Parallel, and the rig required it to be set to DG. DG did fix my rig, but the preview became so laggy that it couldn't be used. So from that point on, I had to animate Mery by playblasting each time I wanted to see a preview.
The following video shows the development of the animation:
The following video shows the development of the animation:
CT5ANIGP - Character Performance 3D Models
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Animation Group Project
Characters:
During the production stage I tried many rigs from the internet, but none seemed to be working without issues.
My initial choices were Malcom and Bonnie, because there was a nice contrast between their shapes, but Bonnie couldn't be scaled. After doing some more research, I have settled for the Mery rig. The next step was to make sure that the rigs would look relevant to the chosen theme.
By creating some basic pieces of armor, and changing the colors of their clothes, I managed to make them resemble some adventurers.
Backgrounds:
One thing that I have realized after creating the background concept art was that my initial idea was too detailed, compared to the rigs. Because of the cartoony look of the characters, I decided to make a simpler background, with basic materials instead of textures. The only textures were used in the fire, map and the vines in the background.
The fire was created by downloading a video from Youtube, then exporting it normally, as an image sequence, to get the Diffuse, and then in a tweaked, black and white version, to get the Alpha. The flickering light of the fire was achieved by using a script that I have found on the internet.
CT5ANIGP - Character Performance Environment Concept Art
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Animation Group Project
Because I thought about the idea of having my animation happen inside a video game, I decided to create a dungeon-like environment. To achieve that I had to look for references in games like Skyrim and Witcher.
Initial Design:
Finished concept:
CT5ANIGP - Character Performance Reference
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Animation Group Project
To gather enough reference material I had to film myself a number of times, acting each character's part. After that, I selected the best bits from each video and put them together to get a rough idea about the behavior of the character. Because I wanted to have a little contrast between the characters, I made the guy look more collected and the girl a little more sassy, while giving both of them comical traits.
In order to get an even better idea about the movement, I looked at the video and extracted the poses that would end up being my main keys.
Hand movement reference for when the male character turns around and leaps towards the girl:
CT5ANIGP - Character Performance Initial Storyboard
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Animation Group Project
After choosing to use the sequence from Edge of Tomorrow, I have tried to create a basic storyboard.
When I received feedback, I have been told that the scene that I envisioned was too similar to the original movie, so I decided to modify it. I had the idea to turn my characters into video game players which want to restart the game because the path ahead is blocked. I made the decision not to storyboard the new idea before getting some reference footage.
CT5ANIGP - Character Concept Art
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Animation Group Project
I have learned that the principles used to paint environments can be also used to draw characters.
In these exercises I have practiced my shape-reading skills. I have started by drawing characters, based on simple geometric shapes.
CT5ANIGP - Master Studies
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Animation Group Project
In the beginning of the semester we have been told how to approach the making of concept art. I made a series of master studies which helped me to get a better understanding of tones and values.
I started by painting in values and then moved on to colors.
Study 1: Vesuvius from Posillipo by Joseph Wright of Derby
Study 2: Cliff Dwellers by Thomas Moran
Study 4: L'Allegro by Thomas Cole
Tuesday, 2 May 2017
CT5ADVRA: Sand Animation
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Advanced Visual Research For Animation
After being split into pairs, we had to try animating with sand.
CT5ADVRA: Ink Tests
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Advanced Visual Research For Animation
After being offered the opportunity to work on a commission which required me to edit some 'bleeding ink' shots, I have decided to do some tests of my own, together with Max.
We have experimented with different types of paper, inclinations and the amount of water on the paper.
CT5ADVRA: Oil Painting
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Advanced Visual Research For Animation
Animation made with oil paints on acetate sheets. While painting, I have noticed that I liked to use the oil sticks for the solid objects, like rocks and trees, and the liquid paints for the water.
CT5ADVRA: Charcoal Animations
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Advanced Visual Research For Animation
As part of the coursework, we were put into groups and made some charcoal animations.
Crow animation:
Cheetah animation:
Ostrich animation:
CT5ADVRA: Nursery rhyme animation
University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 2 - Advanced Visual Research For Animation
As part of the Character Animation Project class, I turned the goose concept work into an actual 3D model.
I have also captured images of the set, to use them as an environment for the animation.
The background images have been slightly modified in Photoshop, in order to get stronger contrasts. The tree was also added in Photoshop.
Because of the difficulty of some of the shots, I chose to modify the sequence.
After the animation stage was completed, I used After Effects to place the character into the scene. To make it look believable, I had to use multiple effects and also masks in various places.
The final result: