Wendy's Animation Blog

Category: 3D Computer Animation Fundamental

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental animation

Week12: Animation Class Final Entry

After 12 weeks of learning fundamental animation in this unit, I noticed the enjoyable way of using reference videos and hand-drawn planning poses to block and polish them in Maya. Here is the polished work combination from this term:

In addition, here is my further development of the body mechanics animation over the Christmas holiday by following the last week’s feedback:

Overall, for this unit I organize my files by creating weekly ‘project’, therefore it could help me to find reference videos and play blasts easily:

I have used the website sync sketch to upload my weekly progression and then receive the feedback.

I have understood most of the 12 principles of animation and applied them into my work, and I am looking forward to learn more of them in the future:

I have been delivered the basic knowledge of ‘X,Y,Z’ in Maya, and it helped me to think through blocking an animation:

The setting of blocking (instead of polishing the spline) an animation:

I have trying to train myself to ‘keep thinking the invisible curve’ when I am adjusting key poses, or making plans of a rigged character in the animation:

I have touched the plug-in Animbot and its Mirror tool in the walk cycle animation and found them to be quite useful:

I understood the importance of weight shift, the leg tends to be straight when the same side of the hip receives more weight:

For the animation in Maya, I could also exaggerate key poses to make them follow the animation principles and make them visually look more powerful and convincing:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental immersion

Week12: UE5 Project Final Entry + Formative Presentation

In this post I I will be summarized my process of working on this funky project in mainly Maya and UE5:

The starting point of this project is a model I built from scratch from last year, inspired mainly by the concept art delivered by the company DNEG. As the design has been highly appreciated through review, therefore I decided to add a story behind it and make it more comprehensive:

Due to my knowledge of using UE5 and Maya, I started blocking the cyberpunk world of this robot directly from Maya and working on its following animation in the same scene. I added an additional dream scene in week 8, and baking alembic cash files with blend shapes from it to the unreal project. For the other model with either rigs or animation, I baked them in FBX files and then imported them into my UE5 file.

I used the advanced skeleton to build up the rigs of the main character, the tattoo robot. However, after completing most of the project, I have been given frequent reviews of adding facial rigs on top.

In the UE5, I have imported my baked animation into the sequence and added all materials on top of each model. Furthermore, I have learnt how to build fire Niagara in week 7 and added that to the sequence as well:

For the lighting, I added all of them inside UE5, and keyed a few of them through the animation sequence:

I have also added the colour grading of the scene through the camera, to make the scene reaching what I expected more:

In the end, After I had rendered all my animation I used the software Premiere Pro to work on its editing and sound design. I used the website ‘story blocks’ recommended by technicians in the digital space and selected a matching soundtrack to the narrative:

I added the dream-like effect on top in the matching dream scene by mainly adjusting the level of exposure and contrast of colours:

I received my final feedback from lecturers, peers and industrial people from Siggraph to make sure I can create better idea based upon the progression of this feedback.

Overall, I really enjoy this project, I have learnt a lot of new knowledge from the weekly workshop and also it allows me to work on an experimental figure in its story. In the future, I want to create more robotic characters and add what I have learnt from this project to their model, rigs and animation.

And in the end, here is my recorded formative presentation for the design proposal of this project, I hope you enjoy watching it:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental animation

Week11: Body Mechanics Polishing

This week I have concentrated on adjusting some key poses from my blocking of the body mechanics animation.

The screenshots below point out the direction of the weight shift at the beginning of the animation:

Overall, the movement of the animating rig should follow like a bouncing ball with an invisible curve, and it should always carry on moving forward by relating back to the reference video.

Also, by exaggerating the movement of each key pose, it’s easier to see the upper body of the rig is behaving similar to the pendulum animation, where the hip is mainly dragging the upper part to complete this jump.

After the highest point of the jump, I keep the hip in the middle to keep the animation simple and keep the dummy has a stable landing on the ground.

I was trying to play the timing of key frames to build up a pendulum feeling of the rig’s upper body:

When the body quickly landing the ground, I stretched the length of it by following the bouncing ball:

When the body fully reached the ground, I squashed its middle length by following the bouncing ball:

Here is my polishing animation from this week with its side view:

Here is my polishing animation from this week with its three-quarter view:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental immersion

Week11: Project Progression before submission

This week I have made some final changes to my work and let the lecturer checked them before my submission, here is my final render:

I have changed the font of the film to make sure they are much easier for audiences to read and feel the vibe of my creation:

And I start working on the submitting video to make sure I edit all the work from this unit together:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental animation

Week10: Body Mechanics Blocking

Due to the direct drawing of tracing on reference was not allowed, I have updated my sketch for the body mechanic animation:

This week we have been focused on how to build up an animation structure by using geos and parent constraints with the body rig:

After we have had a rough structure, we build up different selection sets to adjust keys of the rig body:

Beside my hand-drawn reference, I have also used the video reference to adjust key poses in this animation blocking:

Here is my outcome for this week’s jump:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental immersion

Week 10: Project Progression

In this week, I have concentrated on adjusting my projects with the feedback I have received.

First, by following the lecturer’s advice, I have made the opening title longer for audiences to read:

In the dream scene, inspired by the dream scene in Rango (2019), I have added bigger scale of Goblin models on the background of my project:

Due to my robot’s lack of any facial rig, therefore its ambition and desire for money in its dream become signs of unreal ‘$’ to deliver to the audiences (a rendered clip below to show the semiotic):

In the workspace, I have removed the shots that were pointed out as crossing the 180-degree rule and added more that were inspired by Toy Story 2 (1999):

In the end, The film shows the interaction between the fixer and Woody, mine shows the close-up of the robotic face after and following up its distance to the mannequin:

Before the tattoo process begins, I have added a shot of the robot moving to the dummy from the latter’s perspective to show their interaction more straightforwardly.

My rendered version of this week’s progression:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental animation

Week 9: Polishing Animation + Body Mechanics Planning

In this week, I have kept polishing the animation from the last few weeks to make them looking better with the notes left from the lecturer and animator from the Siggraph event.

For the walking cycle in the side view, there are still some knee pops happening, therefore by rotating the rotation Z of the walker rig and adjusting its foot roll, I tried to fix them:

I keyed the whole rig for three frames before I adjusted any specific frame on the middle, to make sure the change won’t infect the other two.

For the weight shift I have been given advise of making the walker’s foot hold longer when it’s lifting up on the frame 25 and making a curve for it:

Also to make it more fluent, I keep the hip of the rig moving in the end without too many frames being keyed:

Also, this week we have started planning the animation of the body mechanics, here are some notes I have done in the class:

Here is the reference video I have shot in class with my class mate after editing in premiere pro:

I mainly worked on the planning by using the edited reference video in the Photoshop with drawings on top to analysis its body mechanics, and here is my result:

In addition, I have tried to set up cameras in maya by using my reference and the image plane.

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental immersion

Week 9: Project Editing + Siggraph Feedback

This week, I have concentrated on the music design of my project and received a little feedback from the Siggraph event because no lecturer has been arranged for the week:

Due to the feedback from last week from the course leader saying my narrative structure is not strong enough through the moving image, I have tried to add text directly to the short film:

A rendered version of the text been added:

However, as there are big jumps between the text and the film, I have then been given new feedback on turning the text into subtitles and keeping them at the bottom of the film:

A rendered version of turning text to the subtitle:

For the soundtrack of this film, there are three separate parts of the story:

  1. The dream scene.
  2. The work space.
  3. The fire and the emergency.

Hence when I was searching for music on the website Story Blocks, I was trying to find the emotionally matching one to achieve the synthesis of each scene:

My soundtrack list for finding music:

In the end, I put sound effects in necessary place in the timeline, such as the sound for fire, sound for moving robot, and sound for tattooing:

I also use the audio transition in Premiere Pro to help me make the connection of different music more fluently in the scene:

With my finished draft version on Tuesday, I have brought it to the animation event Siggraph in the night and received some valuable feedback from industrial animators:

  1. For the design and animation of robots in the future, I can refer more to the movie Wall-E (2008). I could either make the robot fully float on the air or walk by using the support of wheels to combat with the basic rigging.
  2. For the dream scene, it’s necessary to check the film Rango (2011), and see how it has been structured in the movie by scaling up and down the mannequin and props:

3. For the process of tattooing in my story, I could check the fixing scene in Toy Story 2 (1999), see how the camera movement has been built between the model and the doctor and apply them to my animation:

4. The shot below in my animation has crossed the 180-degree rule so it needs to be changed and rerendered in the future week:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental animation

Week 8: Polishing Walk Cycle Animation

In this week, I have kept working on polishing the weight shift and the walk cycle.

First of all, for the walk cycle, I have made the movement of the body looking more fluent, by following the note given by the lecturer:

I then add toe roll to one of the feet in this walking cycle:

To achieve the fluent knee bend of the animation, I have decrease and increase the rotation X between the down pose and the up pose:

By adjusting the foot position, I try to let the movement to build up curves:

I will wait to receive more feedback from this Friday.

For the weight shift I have mainly checked the starting point of the hip to follow the movement of the feet and the distance of them, I tried to adjust the graph editor to make the movement more fluent:

In Tuesday night, I have also went to the event of Siggraph and receiving feedback from other industrial animators, have noticed I shouldn’t let the movement of it suddenly stopped at the middle, but keep the curve fluent in the graph editor:

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3D Computer Animation Fundamental immersion

Week 8: Project progression + Feedback Session

This week I have focused on the progression of the UE5 assignment and its feedback session, I have finished most of its editing and will be start adding sound design in following weeks:

Within the project, I have built up the opening dream scene this week to indicate the robot’s ambition of being rich, I started working on the scene by modeling cash and coins in Maya and building up their texture in Substance painter:

I have used the reference photos to work on the icon of the money and through the re-topology it brings me a clean topology:

I have also tried to work on the icon in Zbrush, however, I found the result is not ideal and the model is too heavy:

As I was designing the own cash to appear in the robot’s dream, here is what I made and projected:

I prepared the animation of the money in Maya and imported it into UE5 through the baked FBX file and Alembic file separately. Due to the cash having a non-linear bend applied I learnt from the video below, that I couldn’t bake the deformer in to the game engine.

After I had imported everything into a new level of my project in UE5, I decided to give the robot a purple background to indicate its luxurious dream:

However, in the feedback session on Friday morning, my lecturer pointed out that the background built up in UE5 is too protruding therefore she wanted me to build up a proper box as a set, and also add some light spots to make audiences concentrate on the character more. I agreed with her idea, and said it should be more creative:

I used the low poly to work on this box by considering time limitations, due to the robot being a tattoo machine, I experimentally added a layer of skin texture and tattoos on top and related back to the fake skin in its room. To represent its dream and ambition are building up by its reality and ‘function’.

I key the colours and size of the spotlights & skylight in the dream animation sequence to ultimately achieve the desired effect. I keep the purple tone through the lighting:

I have also given the coins some added light through having another light channel 1, therefore they can be more shinning in front of the camera:

In the editing software Premiere Pro, I cut the dream scene with the reality scene at the beginning when the robot sleeps. And because it is a dream, I added an extra layer of effect on top to increase its blurriness and exposure by following an online tutorial below, to build up the dream-like feeling:

During editing, I have also cut off some problematic frames naturally happened in UE5 due to the light changing through shots or camera movement:

In addition, in this week I was also working on the 2D effect of tattoo done by the robot in this animation:

I worked on this specific shot in photoshop by combing the 2D layers with the video document:

I learnt the function from scratch through following this video below:

Overall it’s an intensive week for me, however I do enjoy the progression and always do my backup of files.