Category: Advanced and Experimental 3D computer Animation

IN this week we are planning out the animation to show the advanced body mechanics for the following five weeks by following the workflow below:

Here are a few of my notes:

Pantomime

-Mr Bean

-expressive bodily or facial movements of the performers

We want the character to be acting with the body:

(creating clear full body expression)

• Keep the animation clear and simple, use rules of third, composition and colours
• Lock the camera

Idea:

• If there is no primary idea, looking at YouTube
• Draw thumbnails
• Capturing the essence in my shot
• Pushing the pose, no tracing on my reference
• Needing a desire. Point a&b, what happened to both of them…
• About 5 seconds
• Showing the personality of the character
• No pure body mechanic
• adding more narrative, creating some anticipation, showing the contrast of the character
• entertaining

Here are my initial idea between the character, frog he wants to reach, and the mushroom as a problem between them.

Here are my combined reference video shot during in the class:

Here are my thumbnails and sketches created for the planning of it:

In this unit, I decided to visualize a world which metaphors the perspective of autistic people, from how they creatively seeing artistic things, to their fright caused by noise and flashing lights. Due to I am also developing the world for my FMP project ‘Pocket Fantasy’, I decided to keep similar assets but restructured their features and tell a different story through different movements to deliver the thought.

Here are some shots I developed in the previs for my final major project. This set is mainly an imaginary world constructed from the perspective of our female protagonist:

Here is a concept of my twisted world-building: –> What if my female protagonist has autism, and she lives in this virtual pocket world appearing in my FMP in her imagination?

• Props in this set could be anthropomorphic characters to reflect her inner world, sensory experiences, and emotional navigation.
• The girl sits curled up on a stool, arms around herself—a posture that might suggest self-soothing, anxiety, or feeling overwhelmed.
• The candy, utensils, paper and other animated objects floating around her could represent how everyday stimuli feel amplified—even normal things like candy wrappers or utensils may hold a heightened sensory impact or symbolic meaning.
• These objects have faces, hinting at personification—perhaps a nod to pareidolia or the way some autistic people assign deep emotional connection to objects.
• The bright glowing pink and red hues might reflect sensory intensity—colors, lights, and feelings can often feel more vivid or even overstimulating.
• The lighting may also represent the girl’s focus of attention—autistic perception often zeroes in on specific stimuli in a world that may feel chaotic.
• The golden retriever appears calm and affectionate—perhaps a symbol of comfort or a support animal.
• Many autistic people find solace in animals, who offer non-judgmental companionship and are easier to connect with than people.

Also, I have looked at a few animations talk about autism in YouTube, which inspired me to have this idea

This video represents a few traits of artistic people, which include their fear of unknown things, sensitivity to light and imagination, which protects them from difference.

Other references on the visual side I have used before I started structuring the concept:

Technical side, I develop the female character from turning her 2D design into a 3D sculpture in Zbrush, and then I started doing the retopology in Maya:

I used this course below to support my study of retopology in Udemy:

I will be doing the UV wrapping and rigging in next week, and soon starting to construct the world.

Here is the final outcome of my 3D previs after 10 weeks development, through creating gags in this animation to explore the meanings behind our daily item ‘underwear’— it has hopefully created a romantic story between a male and a female character.

In this week I have focused on a few little details of my 3D previs left to be adjusted. Here are what I have changed by following the feedback:

I exaggerated the movement of my male character when he lied on the ground and wanting his underwear back from the female character under a high angle shot.

I adjusted the time of the cut in the mind world, to ensure they are not looking so interruptive.

I make sure the male character turns onto its left during the moment he feels embarrassed, and so his face could easily face the camera. And linking to his shit in the next shot.

in this week I have kept developing my 3D previs by following my lecturer’s feedback, and here are what I have improved:

When the underwear is landing on the male character’s face, there would be a few seconds in still before the female character leans forward and pick it up.

I changed the camera position of shooting the moment when the female character picks the underwear up.

I get rid of the medium long shot in the mind world of the female character, as there are too many cuts, which messes up the scene a little bit.

I adjusted the movement flow of how does the underwear fly through the moment approaching to the female character.

I extend the time of the shot where my female character shows her prop from her pocket.

I adjusted her movement through the time she lifts up her arm.

I extend the time of the shot where both of my characters show their underwear.

I extend the time of the moment where my two characters look at each other, before they kill in the last shot of the animation.

In this week I carry on in adjusting the camera composition and angles with characters poses in my 3D Previs, here are some of my progression:

The beginning medium long shot starts quicker where two characters meet which audiences could see them more clearly:

I slightly moved camera in this two shot to avoid the overlap in two characters:

When the female character is observing the flying down underwear landing on the male character’s face, I changed to use the medium shot instead of the close-up:

I adjust the pose which needs more space:

Changed a few poses:

Adjusting the ending camera, and also adjusting the ending pose into a much intimate one:

In next week I will be focusing on the timing of shots and see if any of them need to be checked again.

In this week I have concentrated on adjusting the composition of a few shots, and leaving more space for characters, in my 3D previs after receiving feedback:

I have also changed some poses to focus more on the character movement:

When the male character falls down on the floor I have tried to add a camera shake through changing the attributes and following the online tutorial below:

Plus I have also relocated the camera to face the front view of the male:

Beside, through the feedback session I have been told to be careful with the over-lapping areas and try to avoid them through moving the camera or posing the character again in the set:

In this week, I have changed a bit structure of the story narrative after received the feedback from the lecturer. Therefore, I have added a reason for the woman character knows what is hidden in the male character more fluently:

As I decided to let the male character fall over in the beginning of the story to create the chance, here is the main reference video I checked online:

And I found instead of using Banana to slide down the male character, I could use the more common prop– Icecream, left on the ground of the park where they date:

Also, I have added more reaction shot or shot reverse shot into my 3S previs after receiving feedback, which helps audiences to concentrate more on the performance and props of characters.

I have also been told by holding ‘\’ with left mouse bottom, I will be able to zoom out the scene and see things beyond the camera:

I have also been told I can move master control to adjust the position of characters in the animation blocking easily:

In this week I have condensed my 3D Previs from last week, improved the timing and spacing, completing the character bio and fixing some shot compositions through the feedback given by the lecturer.

Here is my more comprehensive character bio:

Here is the shot list I have made before and after the feedback session based on my editing of shots:

The biggest difference between them is the current one gets rid of some confusing shots in the mental imagery:

The changed scale of park benches through scaling down their component at the same time:

As I also develop the composition of the shot, I import the PNG picture of rules of third into my camera:

And indication of how to let the underwear to follow it in the feedback, with my developed shots:

The tip of keep two characters have similar distances to the side of the frame, to create the balance of the shot:

In this week I have double checked the development of my chosen story ‘Pocket Fantasy’, and here is my upgraded version for finishing the whole 3D previs in Maya. I have been given feedback of focusing on the interaction between the two main character, and how they have been balanced through the performance:

Meanwhile, due to the opening scene is a park, I have been given advice of looking at the videos below to find inspiration and reference:

In the second video of understanding basic types of shots, the male is also waiting for someone in the park. Hence, I have added similar types of shots into my creation as shown in the below:

The extreme long shot allows me to expose the whole set to my audiences, and the medium close up is good of showing my character’s action in the screen, the long shot dennotate the costume of what my character is wearing.

Due to we have been asked to do a sheet of introducing our characters in the story, here is my creation of the couple and how the love story has been triggered by their underwear:

Due to I have to finish the previs this week, I have built up a mind board for the set design:

It contains a few primary pictures I have taken in the Elephant park and the Walworth park, which give me a clear direction of what can be added to the park scene:

I used the basic tools such as simple geometries and deformers to structure the shape of green and the tree branches, giving them basic colours through assigning different Ai standard surface material:

Also, I have done a shot list to see which shot will be transferred into the female character’s brain:

In the mind scene, I have mainly inspired by the inner structure of the male’s pocket wand what could be put inside:

And eventually here is my complete previs from this week:

I used Premiere Pro to edit several play blasts together and to see the result: