Category: Final Major Projects and Theis

Pocket Fantasy, this final major solo project has been through a long journey since its previs was planned out in March this year. From the beginning of June to the middle of November, I have used about 5 or 6 months to complete the character concepts, modelling, rigging, and animating with the environment, also properly built by me, and a render in Unreal Engine 5. Before starting to point out what I have learnt or what has challenged me from its process, I generally feel proud of the final version shown below. And I think it’s a very effective romantic comedy with black humour inside, which could successfully bring entertainment to my audiences.

The story, Pocket Fantasy, from its storyboard idea, I never thought it could go this far:

The archetype of the male character in this project is from the gentleman I dated in London, over the winter, the weather was cold, and he put my hand into his pocket, which I then noticed he had brought things (including his underwear) with him to stay overnight in my place. I tried to drag it out near the bankside; however, he protected it well while he felt extremely embarrassed, hence I started adding this fun into building up my pitching idea.

Although my inspiration was happening in the winter, due to the re-writing of the story (also inspired by George), I aim to create a more light-hearted scene, hence I reconstructed everything in the spring.

Where the cartoonish style/ Lookdev has been heavily inspired by The Studio Wrong, the Pokémon game series, and the colour has been inspired by The Grand Budapest Hotel. Where the latter uses colours within different brightness, but the saturation is in order of: low-saturation> medium-low saturation> medium-high saturation> high-saturation. Another reason for me to pick up this style is to save my time by giving a shape to the assets, but concentrating more on the animation.

Talking about my characters Jill and Dex, the blocking of their concept has matched the proportion of rigs I used in the previs (Which I attached below). And they also helped me to structure the sculpture of their models in 3D.

For the pipeline of their models, I started by using ZBrush to structure their body shape, their clothes and hair, and facial features. After they reach a specific level, I would use Z-Remesh to control the face count of their clothes and generate their UVs based on their polygroups. For their body, I exported their models after decimation into Maya and then hand-retopologized them.

Below is the retopology tutorial I generally followed while progressing through the process. I followed it step by step, and it helped me to understand the principles of how vertices, triangles and quadrangles work between subdivisions.

In the rigging process after their retopology, I have followed the tutorials below:

However, due to issues that could happen from nowhere, I have used different versions of Advanced Skeletons at the same time to test out a successful rig. As I realised Jill’s elbow was slightly shorter, I have adjusted its scale X to make it longer for the rig, and locked it for my animation.

After I finished all my character models & rigs, the environments shown above, I started the most important part, which is the animation. As I have finished the previs of the story since March, in the summer I started with shooting the reference by calling my friends in Elephant & Castle. The video below shows how reference helps me to take notes for blockings and further doing any adjustments.

And after the summer, in the autumn term, I was concentrating on fixing camera and character poses each week to complete the task as mentioned in previous blogs:

As there are too many things to show, I would like to share the link to my syncsketch here: https://syncsketch.com/sketch/Z5LDLFLKY5yR/?offlineMode=1#/39207576/40857159/f_0

Eventually, after I finished blocking the animation, I started testing out the render in the Unreal Engine 5 just to save my time. Based on the advice given by our technician Shihong, I have split all my shots into individual shots, which is more beneficial for me to concentrate on details and make adjustments as the camera is set done.

Here is my favourite sheet created for this project, is to note done the content and the frame number of each shot:

Here are my levels of the project in Unreal Engine 5, which you can tell each shot has been managed properly, and if anything changed, I would just re-import the animation again.

Considering the lighting of each scene, I have mainly used the three-point lighting as mentioned in the previous blog and kept the same scene constant from the beginning to the end. I have made the lighting breakdown sheet during the process, just to make myself clear with the content. Whenever my characters turn their body, I animated the lighting at the same time just to make sure they have been positioned in the right location.

Due to this short animation has its potential to submit for film festivals, so I have asked the composer on Fiverr to create a copyrighted soundtrack for the background music. And I have gathered all the necessary sound effects from ‘Free Sound Effects Downloads | SFX (Sound FX) | Zapsplat‘ as shown in my previous blogs. Eventually, I think the music brings a better effect to entertain audiences, and emphasises more on the movements of my characters, or their emotional flow, till the last point.

In the last week, I have also done the poster for this animation project, and I can’t wait for the exhibition happening soon.

To discuss the challenges I encountered in this project, I realised that although the concept had a humorous structure, balancing the humour without making it purely silly was difficult at first. It was also challenging for me to persuade people to understand a seemingly “gross” or unusual story before the visuals were fully developed. I went through many moments of self-doubt about the topic, but things gradually came together—thanks to friends who listened to me, encouraged me, and to my own skills that continued to grow day by day, all the way to the finish line.

Also, for the final presentation, here are my slides:

In this last week of the term, I have concentrated on finishing the rest of the work left from this unit.

1. Based on the request of the show, I have first completed the A1 poster for my project ‘Pocket Fantasy’, and selected 4 render images from the sequence for A6-sized postcards. And below are my finished pieces handed in.

Here is a quick video showing the process of making the poster, and my correction of the wrong spelling of the title, luckily in the last minutes.

2. Due to I have made most of my adjustments to character animation, and there is no problem with their render setup. I have followed Ting’s instructions to work on the lighting of my scenes and see what’s going to happen.

To be inspired by the light design, I have checked these videos below:

These 2 tutorials both outline the principles of 3-point lighting, which I use most in my work. In this tutorial, Nolan has used the lighting facility for film to exhibit the example.

• Key light is always opposite to the fill light.
• Fill light adds a feel to the shadow and makes it not so dark.
• Fill light can’t be as bright as the key light; its intensity is adjusted by distance.
• The backlight (rim light) creates separation from the background for my subject.
• The direction of the backlight can be indicated/motivated by a prop in the background.

Similarly, this tutorial below introduces the principles of these three lights.

• The key light is placed on the side of the camera at a 20 to 45 degree angle.
• The fill light is normally 50% of the key light.
• The backlight is to highlight the contour of the subject.
• We can also light up the background to bring colours to it.

In this tutorial below, its logic is more approachable to 3D animation:

• The lecturer has introduced the importance of planning the lighting set-up to form the environment of the scene.
• He has mentioned that each character can have their individual layer of lighting, which helps them to stand protruding in the scene.
• The lighting breakdown/ context sheet helps to clarify directions of the light, location, and fixed colours for different times. They also help us to check the coherence.

Here is my lighting breakdown for each shot while I was working on it:

(However, for the final result, things will need to be checked in my film)

To make each character protrude, I have used lighting channels to separate their individual fill & rim lights.

I have added their lighting to the animation sequence to animate their positions when characters are turning or moving their bodies.

Whereas their fill light is always opposite to the directional light in the level, and the rim light is always bringing a contour to the character in the frame.

I also did a comparison with the render version without lighting to the version with lighting this week:

After adding the 3-point light, I think overall the Lookdev is becoming much softer and more matching to the romantic theme. Therefore, in the future project, I will also remember to adjust them just to create a more atmospheric scene.

Here is my final rendered version with lighting from this week:

Next week, I will be concentrating on handing in the work and finishing all my blogs.

After learning the tutorials online from the previous week, I started to tweak the facial animation in my project. And after I attended the Siggraph event ‘Bring your own Animation’ in November, I was given advice on checking the tangled character sheets to find some reference for mine, which has been attached below:

https://www.tumblr.com/scurviesdisneyblog/712748718389166080/model-and-expression-sheets-for-tangled-2010-by

In this post I will be discussing where I have adjusted within the whole project, and my reasons of why by applying the principle learnt from last week:

• In shot 3, where my male character turns his head to the right, I have slightly raised his right side (cheek, eyelid, and eyebrow), and rotated his chain slightly to the left-hand side of the screen as he looks on the corresponding side.

• Similarly, in shot 4, I raised Jill’s opposite side of her face to create a matching shot-reverse-shot where they are greeting each other.

• Before Dex stumbles on the ground, he looks back at Jill, who is on the left-hand side of the screen. Here I rotate his chain slightly to the right-hand side of the screen, and let her upper face look on the left to respond to Jill. This helps to build up a C curve and makes the expression more asymmetrical.

• In shot 11, where Dex’s underwear has been picked up by Jill from his face, he groans after that. I let him squeeze his face first, which creates an anticipation for his later stretch and makes that look surprising.

• In shot 12, when Jill is scrutinising Dex’s underwear, I made her right-hand side face slightly raised up more so her eyebrow flow can point to the right-hand side of the screen.

• In shot 14, I exaggerated Jill’s facial expression after she noticed it’s an underwear flew out from Dex’s pocket by following the feedback given back by Rebecca at the Siggraph event. As her eyes are staring bigger, which also follows the trend of her shocked eyebrows.

• In shot 18, I made Jill’s eyebrows look more confusing; however, I have kept her eyebrow flow by following the principle.

• In the first shot of the imaginative world, when the underwear is flying to the right-hand side of the screen, I have raised the left-hand side of Jill’s face slightly higher just to create the flow, so audiences would follow.

Overall, for this week’s progression, here are my notes on my shot list:

Besides my progression in animation, I have also been double-checking with my music composer for his name credit in the end of my film:

And I have sent my content for preparing its promotion on the campus during the exhibition time:

After discussing with my friend Jan Zhou, who knows what I am working on since the summer holiday, I have been inspired to create a digital 2D A1 poster for the show. And here is how it’s been progressed.

In the next week, I will be focusing on finishing the postcard, poster and adjusting the last bit of lighting in the forest scene, and will be ready to submit this romantic work finally to the course 🙂

This week I have focused on some final body movement fixes based on our lecturer Ting’s feedback in class, and I have moved on to give the facial animation a final push by watching more tutorials online.

First of all, here is my project shot list with updated notes in progression. As I have kept this good habit of noting things done, this will help me check each specific shot:

For the splining of the body movements in my project, here are the notes and visualisation this week:

• In shot 1, I speed up the moment when Dex turns his body to the left and looks at his watch. Since the previous movement was slower, this adjustment brings a more fluent flow and pace to the animation.

• In shot 6, while Jill is turning her body to the right to point Dex to walk with her, I added a few offsets to give her body layers. Where her root turns first, and then her spine, and then her neck, and lastly her head.

• In shot 8, where Dex slips over, it’s one of the most difficult shots in this project. I rotated his foot more throughout the moment he tried to balance himself by following my online reference. Also, I tried to follow the reference to stretch more of his legs through a curve in this shot.

• In shot 10, Ting mentioned that the rig of Jill’s hand was broken as I overpushed it, hence I pulled it back by rotating it to the right-hand side of the screen by following her elbow and shoulder.

• In shot 10, the frame just before her hand attaches to the underwear, I have adjusted the pose to make the constraint work more reasonably from the vision.

• In shot 16, Ting mentioned that there should always be a curve when my character is standing up. Hence, I double checked my reference, and to make sure his root is rising up in each frame.

Over the feedback session, Ting recommended we watch the tutorials below. As I followed each of them carefully, I attached my written notes to this blog.

This video is really good at explaining the pipeline and the order of making the facial animation. The lecturer has given case studies showing the ‘S’ curve of mouth shapes and the line of the action of facial shape. He has also mentioned the importance of connecting facial rigs, while they should all move within a similar pattern when there is a specific level of emotion happening.

He pointed out facial expression of my character should always be asymmetrical, and only when they are more ‘extreme’ in an expressive way, they will create a less controllable symmetrical face.

He has also pointed out the importance of keeping the eyelid always on the edge of the bulge (pupil) of the eyes, and the eyelid should always follow the flow of the eyebrows.

During the Q&A, he mentioned that only the anthropomorphic characters follow the principles he talked about; creatures within VFX will be different. And it also depends on the style of the project I am working with.

As far as I follow the line of the action of the character’s face, it will be hard for me to break the rig.

This video mentions similar points which have been mentioned by the previous one; it emphasises more on the principle of eyebrows. They always have three points, and the lower the narrower, the higher the wider. Also, two eyebrows always need to be connected to create the ‘flow of the brows’.

This third video shows more of the process of sculpting the facial rig to match the 2D sketch, and demonstrates the use of blend shapes of how the soft brush tool and sculpting tool can help to form specific expressions.

Due to the time limitation, as this project needs to be handed in within 10 days, I will be fixing the facial animation of shots which are focusing more on character expressions. By applying to principles I have learnt above, I hope to develop mine through practice as well.

After I received the soundtrack composed by Dima from Fiverr for my project, I slowly moved on to designing sound effects for this story by putting things together after numerous tests. As building up a sequence in Premiere Pro will be easier for me to re-import clips, it will also be convenient for me to keep adjusting the sound by tweaking the animation.

As this project is potentially submitted to film festivals, hence, I researched websites which provide copyright sound effects online, and I think ‘Zapsplat’ is the one that fits my requirements the most. The BBC sound effect is okay, but not as flexible as the one in Zapsplat, as most of them are extracted from their documentaries.

Free Sound Effects Downloads | SFX (Sound FX) | Zapsplat

On Zapsplat, I have built my own list for my project; therefore, I can easily review it if I miss anything during development.

In my documents, I have used specific words to describe different main actions in my animation (such as grab, shock, tap, etc.), and so I can easily classify sound effects I downloaded online, and search for them in different files.

Besides editing, I have also explored fonts. As I think the initial ‘Times New Roman Font’ is looking too formal for the project title, I was trying to find something more stylised to match my story ‘Pocket Fantasy’. And so, I found this website ( 1001 Fonts ❤ Free Fonts Baby! ) to download creative fonts and tested them out in Premiere Pro.

There is a spelling mistake in my search, which ‘Pocket Fantacy’ should be spelt as ‘Pocket Fantasy’. Over this week, I will be more concerned with its spelling.

After browsing the website, here is what I have downloaded, and after the selection, I have decided to use the font ‘Nesta Mastone’ for my title:

However, in the end credits, I am still thinking of using ‘Times New Roman Font’ as it can properly show names of the cast and is much clearer to read.

And eventually, here is my progression of the project this week, which shows the music in development and the title font has been replaced.

In this week, I have started with learning multiple ways of rendering in Unreal Engine 5, and did my test of deciding which rendering will be suitable for my scene.

Firstly, I watched this video, and made my notes by doing the test at the same time:

In this video, Jon has clearly introduced the way of setting up the Movie render queue as a plugin and adding multiple attributes in the settings. He has used the EXR format for image rendering and making render presets, which include things like 1. Game Override 2. Anti-aliasing 3. Colour Output 4. Console variables.

The first time test by following the tutorial is showing the high exposure images in Premiere Pro. Hence, I turn on the ‘enable tone curve’ (by not doing any further colour grading), and switch the EXR format into JPG format (to make Premiere Pro easier for identifying their colour information).

Eventually, I have also made a test by using the Render (Legacy), and here is the result. However, this method is more adaptable for feedback, which is of lower quality and more speedy to render out.

Also, in the freetime of this week I have finished the showreel of this project and this unit and here is my version, which will be shown to the lecturer and seeking for the feedback before the submission date:

To progress my splining of the animation, I have received a few other feedback from our lecturer Ting, and here are what I have fixed this week:

• Shot 1 should use the offset for different parts of Dex’s body, where the order should be: Hip moves -> Foot & Hand move -> Head

• In shot 2, the head turns to the left smoothly. The movement should be more fluent and natural.

• I need to ensure there is no dip in the character’s walking, where I should always keep their Z translation (Y in my rig) of the root straight in the animation editor.

• In shot 10, the girl should step down a bit faster for timing accuracy.
• When Jill is grabbing the fabric (Shots 12 &14), her hand gesture should be more natural instead of rigid.

• In shot 13, Dex’s arm pulling motion should have an arc — not straight, but with a smooth curve.

• In shot 16, Jill’s ending pose should be more relaxing.

Here is the progression of the week after using the new rendering way, which I have learnt and noted above:

Here is this week’s shot list with notes in progression:

After I was done with this week’s render, I also asked the sound composer on Fiverr to create a music background for this project, and here is my editing page with the info I sent to him:

I made this decision because the film has the potential to engage a wider audience at film festivals, and obtaining permission to use copyrighted music will make the project more credible and acceptable. Over the next few weeks, I will be completing the sound effect editing for it and focusing more on polishing the facial animation of this project.

By receiving the feedback from the technician Shihong in late week, I have split all my shots into individual files; which are in two separate groups: matching the imaginative world and the forest park scene.

Basically, I have turned the body movements of my characters into splining and fixing every moment, which looks unnatural with the previous feedback and my reference. And so here is my progression of the week:

I have also fixed all the Gimbal lock happening in my scene by checking if all the rotation X and Y of the elbow is turning back to 0, but only driven by the X,Y,Z rotation of the hand with the Z rotation of the elbow.

In Unreal Engine 5, I have updated all files in rendering by importing individual cameras for each shot, and then connecting them together in my film.

As I had adjusted the timing of the camera during the time I fixed each shot, a slight difference in the shot frame will appear between Maya and Unreal Engine 5, hence here are my notes of each shot and the necessary assets to be exported & rendered in each shot:

Due to the prop, underwear has several constraints; hence, I have used the Alembic file for exporting them from Maya and importing them into the game engine. To make sure I can assign texture to these models properly, I opened the UV sets when exporting.

I have also added the scale animation of the underwear to make sure the one in running is the shot needed for:

In the following week, I will keep fixing each shot with the feedback given by Ting and also add the hair/facial animation into my characters by unmuting the layer. So hopefully next week I can hand in a version with fixed body movements and splining facial expressions.

This week starts with fixing the rest of the blocking issue happening in my scene:

• The camera should always move after characters move

• When my male character falls onto the ground, his lower body shouldn’t twist at all

• When my male character gets up, I have changed the camera angle to make the animation more fluent by hiding the difficult weigh shift

• I have make the shoulders and arms of the male more straight when he tries to apologize

After I have fixed most blocking poses, I start adding in between to my poses and splitting the scene into numerous files by matching the shot number. I studied from the technician Shihong of how to build up animation layer and so I can make my working pipeline much clear.

Beside, as I am considering the time limitation, I have started editing the showreel for this unit to show my behind the scene file and experimentations. I hope they will be helpful to support my progression in the future.

My texts for the audio:

After splining the animation, my focus of each shot is becoming condensing and refining the movements by getting rid of the unnecessary keys. I will be keep doing it for the following week and run another render test in Unreal Engine 5 to make sure the project can be completed properly.

Based upon the feedback I received from the lecturer and the technician, this week I am focusing on condensing my animation, changing camera angles and fixing more blocking poses.

Here is my current updated version:

To save my time, I have edited down the walking cycle at the beginning of the story and started with a long shot showing the male character waiting in the park by reading his watch.

When my female character is showing up, I switched the camera into a mid shot for focusing on her upper body movement, and her facial expression.

When they start walking, I adjusted the position of the camera, and put them closer to my characters for delivering a better atmosphere between this couple.

I adjusted the position of the camera when the male character falls down and so build up a better composition.

Poses side, I stop my male character bending too much when he just falls over the ground where most joints should be stiff based upon the painfulness. I remove the female character from the shot as there need to be more space for him to perform.

When the female pulls her underwear out from from pocket, I relied more on the IK of her controller instead of the FK. And more references were being taken during the class.

Turning poses are being updated with new reference shot during the class with Shihong:

Due to the shape of Male’s cloth is looking so swollen, I have adjusted it by using the sculpture tool on my referred models in Maya.

In the imaginary scene, I have edited out the shot below and cut directly into the underwear kiss, which is the climax of this story.

I have added more poses when she turns her body to make the shot more fluently.

I stop her from changing position in the last shot to make it less confusing and more clear.

After I receive the feedback from the lecturer this week, I notice my next step is to fix key poses with more knowledge in the following days. And I will be listed materials which inspired me, my notes, and how I start with the imaginative scene.

I got no further ideas beside my recorded reference videos, so, I think it’s a good time to review my shots, camera movements and character poses (examples of fix given by Ting below).

From this filr Ting has shared me, here are my notes:

• Each pose should have clear silhouette with a clear outline
• No confusing shapes or overlaps
• Poses are made to express the emotion
• Move prop into a less crowded area when it is on the foreground
• Line of Action
• S, or C shaped curves run through body during the movement
• Un-balanced pose can happen in a dynamic movement.
• Asymmetry is important to poses
• Exaggeration (especially hands, head, torso) helps audiences to lead pose and emotion much clear, it reflects character’s personalities as well.

This video has emphasized the importance of a clear and dynamic pose within different scenarios, also it has mentioned the website ‘Royalty-Free Stock Photos, Creative Images & Vectors | News, Fashion, and Entertainment imagery – Getty Images‘ for gathering free video references online for study and learn.

Torso normally doesn’t bend, but the lower back and the neck do, mid torso is super straight

the shoulder is a floating joint, only connecting to the sternoclavicular joint. As we raise our arm, we raise up our shoulder; the clavicle needs to get involved (otherwise it is wrong).

Pushing poses should include my clavicles, similarly to the pulling back poses. Pushing a pose means knowing limitations of the anatomy that can be pushed, and making it believable.

FK Arms: We cannot move our hand in without our shoulder internally or externally rotating. We cannot pivot from the elbow as our elbow only goes up and down.

My progression of this week by fixing a few key poses and arms animation:

New references of this week: