Wendy's Animation Blog

Author: Wendy Wang Wang

Categories
Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

Week 6: Mise-en-scène

In this week’s session, we have touched on some basic domains of mise-en-scene. Generally, mise-en-scene means things that are included on the screen but also related to sound, camera, and editing skills.

Here is my notes from the class:

From my opinion of views, we not only see mise-en-scene from the animation and films but also other media such as posters and music videos, they help audiences to received the meanings behind characters through several elements:

  1. Setting
  2. Props
  3. Costumes, hair, make-up
  4. Facial expressions, body language
  5. Lighting, colours
  6. Positions of characters/objects within the screen.

The poster below is from the film Brave (2012) by Pixar Animation Studio, it follows the general trend of showing the main characters with their featured mise-en-scene in the film: costumes, facial expressions, positions and props made from computer graphics.

Here I have done a small analysis based on its main elements:

The castles and trees in the background of this poster point out that the main set is remote from the centre of the country, which makes the audience feel expectant about the construction inside the building. However, the glaucous green mist builds an odd atmosphere, which connotes the unknown danger and the mystery in the story. The regional identity which corresponds to the medieval costume and weapons these characters are wearing conveys their masculine characteristics are used to resist danger and guard the family in the place,

Two feminine characters in this poster are wearing blue and green skirts respectively, the girl in the front shows a head of messy orange hair which represents her energy and passion but the woman behind her looks more gentle and mature with her tied black hair at the back, the binary opposite of them connotes a contradiction might be presented between them in the story. The leather coats worn by masculine characters are much stronger and more supportive in their life. Three young characters who wear identical clothes connote that they are of the same age and gender. Their make-up is not obviously shown because of the distance and the lack of straight light.

Within the frame, two separated parts of characters they have connote a break between them. The character in the front is more likely to show her weapon and facial expression to the audience, by contrast, the people behind her are showing a less powerful status with their smaller figures, which makes the audience more likely to trust the story is mainly about the girl in front of the camera. Although the construction of this poster shows these six characters are positioned in the same environment the distance between the main character Merida and 5 characters behind her connotes that Merida needs to face her own destiny and the test of her life.

In the progression of my essay this week, it’s also easy to find that orthodox animation concentrates more on the mise-en-scene and how the camera or sound applied to display them:

The above is a short textual analysis of the camera and characters’ poses from a performance scene in Snow White (1983):

Also, the hyper-realistic poses have been applied to creatures in the Disney film Bambi (1942), in the snowy set their characteristics have been amplified with their movements and soundtrack:

Here is a short textual analysis based on the scene which I added onto my essay this week:

There are different camera angles, movements or compositions related to things in the frame. It’s important to understand them either for structuring my film or writing my essay:

The photo below shows the main camera angles we can see from animation or films, a few of them can structure the opposite binary of characters such as low angle and high angle shots.

The photo below visually explains different camera movements, from my opinion, I think panning and tilting are mostly been used in structuring the narrative of a film or animation.

The photo below shows some compositions that can be applied to a shot, they have mainly been structured or drafted through shapes and lines.

When we build up camera movements in a scene, it’s also important to know there should be an invisible line to prevent the camera from crossing 180 degrees, otherwise, audiences won’t be able to identify two exactly the same objects/characters in the shot.

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamental immersion

Week 6: UE5 Control Rig + Assignment Feedback

In this week’s session, we have mainly looked at the control rig in UE5 and the blue print of changing or building up a character’s rig. First of all, we have downloaded the FAB to Ue5 and added its plug-in into our project:

By quickly downloading a paragon from the FAB, we were experimenting with adding UE5’s rig to its mesh.

After that, we were trying to learn the process of editing an existing skeletal in UE5 through the plug-in below, and the control rig added to the project.

Within the control rig, we could change the transformation of different joints, such as changing the root joint to three 0 in its transformation.

Within the control rig, we could also adjust the rig by deleting and adding new rigs within its hierarchy.

As the added rig tends to appear on the middle of the mesh, we can use the transform tool to drag it one by one.

After adjusting the rig, it’s also important to bind skin and check the skin weights in UE5.

After that, we downloaded a control rig pack from the FAB, it has some already rigged characters for us to play and study:

We looked at their blueprints and played with the control rig by setting and controlling the bone and controller, through following the tutorial:

It’s also important to learn the way to change the shape, and side of controllers as different characters are having different shapes:

Always remember to ‘GET THE BONE, and SET THE CONTROLLER’.

After the lesson, my lecturer gave me quick feedback on my assignment. She pointed out some shots in my animation that needed to zoom out a bit, and I needed to review the camera movement after I finished the robot animation.

Also I found some online tutorials might be helpful for me to build fire in my scene:

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamental animation

Week 5: Blocking of the Weight Shift animation

In this week, I start leaning knowledges of the weight shifting in animation. Here are some notes I have taken after reading the Animator Survival Kit:

To structure my blocking of the Weight Shift animation, I have followed the tutorial in the Youtube and the tutorial recorded by the lecturer.

There are some notes I have taken through learning the video:

At the beginning of the progression, I have built up a MEL bottom for my rig:

The peeling off pose I tried to learn with the rig:

I noticed it’s always to check the pose of the rig through the side view:

The foot shifting pose I tried to learn:

I have been taught the importance of looking at the arc of each joint of the rig in the animation:

Here is my first practice through learning the Weight Shift from George’s tutorial:

By noticing I want to learn more details of building the blocking, I started learning the video below:

In this video I have noticed a few important points:

  • The squash and stretch can be applied when the ball is moving down and up.
  • The position of the ball in this rig is moving drastically during the weight shift.
  • There should be an invisible line formed of each part of the rig in my animation.
  • when the foot is landing, the Y axis is reaching 0.
  • I can add foot roll and toe roll in specific time in my animation.
  • Playing the delay of some specific frames can create some specific effect in my animation.

After my two attempts of blocking the animation, here is my final result of this week:

Eventually I have also made some poses through using the character rig by following the walking reference online:

Categories
Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

Week 5: Social and Political comment in animation

In this week’s session, I looked at some films and animations related to political messages from the real world. Such as the concept of the an-ti colonialism displayed by the film Avatar and the animal rights considered by both the audiences and the producer of the film Planet of the Ape (1968).

As I am ill this week, here is my note being taken by following the online recording and files:

After the class, I did some research on animation which tries to tackle problems related to social issues of equality, diversity or social injustice:

The creator of this independent animation has talked about her bumpy experience of getting surgery to remove lumps in her uterus in California. As more and more states are banning abortion in America, it triggered her panic about taking a prescription from the doctor to treat the disease in her uterus. She has talked about abortion as not only relating to a baby, it can relate to removing any tissue from the uterus, but no matter what type of DNC that a patient is taking, the lawmakers are ignoring the reason for it which could send the doctor to trouble or the receiver.

This animation has greatly shown the importance of a necessary DNC for an ill woman can rescue them from suffering from the perspective of a patient, and it has also reached 3.8 views on YouTube and over 30k comments.

In addition, I have also looked at some animated documentaries and did some analysis:

This animation Waltz with Bashir 2008 below, brought me to think about the implications of using animation can visualize the more abstract scene discussed by a person. The contrast lighting and colours can deliver strong emotion with the voiceover played in the film. It expanded how the audiences imagine and review the history, remembering it and seeing it from a more detailed side.

The film Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) below shows the tragedy happening to the boat Lusitania through frame-by-frame pictures, it visualises the moment the ship torpedoed and sank by the German submarine. The animation of this documentary, I think it cleverly reconstructs the scene with low-budget material which the live-action and the other media cannot really approach.

Within the film, A Is For Autism (1992), I found the camera movement applied to the hand-drawing animation beneficial in representing the narrative of autism. As the narrative is more like a mumbling, the cut between animated scenes seems easier to apply compared to the other media.

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamental immersion

Week 5: UE5 Fracture Mode + Project Progression

This week, I have focused on the fracture mode of the UE5 in the session, the blocking of my assignment & its rendering in the game engine.

Here is a render I have made of my own project blocking from UE5, it reflects I have made my own pipeline successful by importing the camera and actors from Maya to the game engine:

Here are the blocking animation of the camera I use and the tattoo robot in the story:

As I am ill, I am taking notes of the recording session this week, and thinking to apply them in the future in my project:

Besides the blocking animation shown on top, I have focused on doing different types of materials in the UE5 to match my story:

  1. Skin materials for dummies, cyberpunk humans, creatures:

I have used the UDIM to shorten the working process to save time, organise each model, and use the level of roughness/ metallic to identify the metal and non-metal parts. As all of the above related to the skin, I have added a skin texture to their height map and decreased its level through a filter called ‘contrast luminosity’.

The skin texture is bought from the package in Flipped Normal as a support:

As there are a few ‘naked skin’ in my scene, such as the goblin body and fruits, therefore I have added another layer on top of their basic PBR materials to display the inner light that skin can reflect:

Within the ‘subsurface’ shading mode in UE5, the higher the opacity the lower the effect of the skin scattering happening in the scene, the colour of the latter is based upon the base colour linked to the ‘Subsurface Colour’ in the UE5 material. There will be no skin scattering effect when the opacity is breaching 1 or the above.

In addition, as I have focused on producing those tattoo effects on the model, I have projected the tattoo flash I made when I was an apprentice and added effects to make them look ugly and blurry (as a mess created by the robot in my story):

Before and after the filter ‘Blur Slope’ applied on the ink:

Details of the ‘Blue stencil’ I have added on the first layer of models:

2. Water materials for tattoo inks:

As the design of my story robot is a functional robot for tattooing, it has a circle of ink bottles surrounding its main body, it’s unavoidable to build the water material by following the tutorial above in the game engine.

The shot when its needle is dipping into the ink bottle and preparing to tattoo on the cyberpunk being in my story:

I have produced different colours of the water/ink material through playing with the node parameter at the bottom:

I am glad this week I have finished all the texture attempts in this project, next week, I will concentrate on adding details to the blocking animation I have done within this project.

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamental immersion

Week 4: Session + Project Progression

In this week’s session, we have mainly focused on the material in UE5 and the function of subsequence in the animation sequencer:

In my own time, I have kept focusing on building up my cyberpunk world for my tattoo robot, I first finished some texture of my model in Substance Painter, adding projection and paint stroke to make the whole style more stylized:

As I thought the robot may make mess in its set therefore I add layers of spray on its furniture used in its set:

And also, on top of itself:

I added foliage in the set through the foliage mode in UE5:

As the tattoo robot works on the organic dummy or flesh, I have added these pictures into my reference mainly for this week:

As the organic part always combines with the hard surface part in the cyberpunk world, I have worked on the dummy model all in Zbrush, including the retopology, Z-remesh, projection and UV wrap through polygroups:

Process of showing re-topologizing & polishing on Dummy hard surface models in Zbrush:

Process of showing working on Dummy polygroups and UV wrap in Zbrush:

Process of showing working on model projection in Zbrush:

Process of showing organising UVs and Udims of dummies in Maya after finished my model build-up in Zbrush:

In addition, by making my own alpha maps in Zbrush, I can add specific pattern on top of the dummy as a decoration:

The work I have done this week above has been highly supported by the book Beginner’s guide to Zbrush by 3dtotalpublishing:

in page 153, it indicates how to work on retopology in zbrush by using zsphere:

And I have summarized my own pipeline of working on hard surface in Zbrush after refining the pipeline taught in this book, here is my note:

In the first project of the book has also indicated how to make good polygroups on a human model:

I used all these good references written by professionals to push the assignment work, next week I will be focusing on finishing the model in the set and the blocking of my main character and the camera.

Categories
Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

Week 4: The Auteur + Modern Art within Animation

In this week’s session, we have been introduced the concept of the animation auteur in the class:

Looking at films or animations directed by a specific director makes it easier to understand what could make an Auteur. They can be built up by the director’s vision through the mise-en-scene mixed up with the genre, which audiences can then identify.


One of my favourite auteurs is the film and animation created by Tim Burton, all of the characters within his design or direction have a specific type of make-up on their faces, a gothic style of costume, and structured by a wacky story. Below are some of the examples within the horror genre:
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Beetlejuice (1988), and Frankenweenie (2012).

In the after-session reading, I concentrated on how fine art inspires animation techniques and exploration in material ways, and how animation could modernise the former. for example, the film The Tale of Tales (1979) used a lot of Rembrandt lighting to indicate the character’s journey in its set:

Here are the notes I have taken by reading the forth paragraph of the book Animation: Genre and Authorship written by Paul well:
Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamental animation

Week 4: Polishing the Tail Animation

In this week’s session, I fixed some poses from last week’s assignment and learned to turn my blocking animation into a spline. Here is my polished blocking play blast:

And here is my note written from the session:

While developing the tail animation, I found it important to understand how the tail can possibly follow the motion trail of the bouncing ball (body), and how the motion trail in Maya guides the movement of the animation:

In the blocking stage, I found it important to check if all the keys were not in a linear line (even for the distance):

In the end of the animation process, I can clean up the graph editor to make the curve much clear:

Categories
3D Computer Animation Fundamental animation

Week 3: Tail Animation

A few quick notes from the class:

  1. Anticipation is the movement before a main movement.
  2. Anticipation is building up for force.
  3. All movements build up by either internal or external strength.
  4. Anticipation is the easiest way to build up an internal energy and triggers a movement to happen.
  5. An object in motion always stays in motion, except it has been stopped by another energy.

The below screenshot shows the setting of making blocking for these two weeks blocking:

Making bottom to control the rig:

Combining with this online tutorial, it supports me to work on the blocking of the tail animation:

This tutorial mainly has 4 parts to demonstrate:

  1. Blocking of the bouncing ball animation
  2. Blocking of the tail animation
  3. fixing the distance of the animation with the landing keys
  4. fixing the rotation of the animation

The first photo below shows the graph editor of the blocking made for the body part of the rig at the beginning, which shows when the ball reaches the peak it will speed up. On the contrary, it will slow down when it’s off the floor or lands on the floor. The second photo below shows there will be a pause when the ball lands on the floor and when it restarts bouncing again, at this moment, the ball is squashing and stretching. #

There are a few main blocking poses of the tail shown through the tutorial, and I made screenshots of them. They include the tail shape when the rig is in its starting pose, the tail when it’s off the floor, and the tail when it’s on the pack; oppositely they also show how the tail rig changes when it’s landing on the floor.

This photo below shows a new bouncing circulation starts:

The z-axis in the animation graph editor indicates the distance the rig jumps in this animation (from the side view), however, there is a pause between each bounce, therefore there should be non-changed part in the z-axis as well to avoid the sliding.

In the rotation part though, we need to keep the graph in linear as this action has no pause, the rig keeps doing it during the animation.

Here is my planning draft for the blocking and knowledge learnt from the above tutorial:

Categories
Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

Week 3: Understanding basic experimental animation

In week three’s lesson, we looked at some main examples of experimental animation from the past to the contemporary centuries.

The scanned pictures below include the notes I have taken in the class, at the weekend I will be reviewing those short films and taking contextual analysis from them by relating back the structure of my draft essay:

Over the weekend, I concentrated on the fourth paragraph of the book Experiment Animation — from Analogue to Digital to look at different forms of animation that appeared within experimental animation, and took some notes. Also, I have analysed two short pieces created by Balazs Simon, reviewing the journey written by Len Lye and Oskar Fischinger from Experimental Animation — an illustrated anthology: