Category: 3D Computer Animation Fundamentals

After this module, I now have a great understanding of the 12 principles of animation. Animating was a skill that I was not familiar with in 3D that much but the process of George’s class had an awesome influence on the flow of my journey in animation. I tried my best to watch as many references as possible and add George’s critiques to my work to make my work better. I’m really excited about the next module and starting a new chapter with Previs animation.

As for the Unreal Engine, I had a really good experience but also because my laptop is a bit rusty there were times that UE5 made me wanna quit everything. The thing is I love spending time working with a computer and figuring out the problems I have mathematically. Additionally, I’m thinking of having some shots rendered in UE5 for FMP as I can worry less about rendering and focus more on aesthetic aspects.

Overall I learned a lot of things in this module and I’m so excited to start the next module and learn more.

Down below you can see my showreel and also my design proposal for my FMP.

Adding sounds to my project literally changed everything. The story begins with a shot of a planet called “Hoth” which I created with blueprints. Then we can see two troopers animated in Maya walking past and being suspicious because they were told something is wrong and then the falcon comes in giving us the information that Luke is on his way to destroy the troopers’s base. This was a really fun and also difficult project as it was my first time creating something in UE5. This software is really powerful and also fast which makes it easier to work on big scale environments.

After doing the shot in blocking and adding the first round of George’s critiques, I added more keyframes in between and also worked more on the anticipation.

As the last step of my project, I added some sound effects and a soundtrack to enhance it. P.S. I changed the sound that had copyrights and added a royalty-free soundtrack to my project, the thought of changing everything at the last minute made me panic (Serra saw it!) but eventually, I was able to change the soundtrack on time and now I’m good to go.

For my first body mechanics shot I chose jumping over an obstacle as it’s not too difficult but also has its own challenges. I watched a lot of videos to understand the key poses of the jump. The main poses are the rest pose, where the character is preparing to jump, the anticipation pose, the kick-off pose, the up pose, the contact pose, and the down pose. Here is My planning and also the blocking of the jump.

One of the most important aspects of animating a walk cycle is understanding weight and balance. When a character takes a step, their body weight shifts from one foot to the other this shift in weight affects the way that their body moves and their posture. Moving the character forward correctly and balancing the weight shift was really tricky I’m sure that I’ll have nightmares of animating this walk cycle.

Rendering in UE5 was really fast and convenient. I’ve used Redshift for rendering in the past although it’s GPU-based but it would take me three days to render 30 seconds, but in UE5 I rendered everything in a few minutes. I’m really happy with the finalized renders and thanks to post-processing the process of compositing is much easier.

While working on my UE5 project, I realized that I needed an introduction for my narrative animation project. To achieve this, I decided to begin the animation with a shot of a planet that is always covered in snow. Using blueprints and instance materials, I was able to create a planet that resembles my vision perfectly, using Mars texture maps. Once I add animation and composite it in Nuke, the intro will look even better and be the perfect opening for my project.

These are the most important poses that a character does during the walk cycle; the contact pose, where the foot makes contact with the ground, and the passing pose, where the foot passes by the other leg. Other keyframes include the down pose, where the character’s body weight is shifted onto the foot that’s making contact with the ground, and the up pose, where the body weight is shifted onto the other foot. As for my planning, I used the planning in the “Animators Survival Kit”. You can see the walking cycle in blocking down below.

To create a snowfall effect in Niagara, the first step is to create a new Niagara System asset and add a Particle Spawn module. Then, set the particle spawn rate and lifetime to control the density and duration of the snowfall. The next step will be to add a Particle Update module to apply gravity and wind forces to the particles, simulating their movement in the air. Finally, by using a Material module to add a snowflake texture to the particles and adjusting the colour and opacity I was able to add snowfalls into my scene.

A weight shift is when a character shifts their weight from one foot to the other, creating a natural sense of balance and movement. At our session, George told us about the importance of distributing the weight correctly and always keeping the centre of gravity in mind the way we can do that is by imagining a line through the middle of the pose and checking the balance of the positive spaces. Here you can see my planning and also the blocking of the weight shift animation.

Animating a tail can be challenging yet rewarding. A tail is an essential part of animals and plays a crucial role in the animal’s movement and communication.

First, we needed to understand how the tails move and behave in different situations. George suggested animating a tail in 2D first to get a deeper understanding of it.

As for my animation, I chose the reference embedded below to understand the relationship of the squirrel’s body with its tail. Additionally, paying attention to the weight and momentum of the tail, as well as its interaction with the rest of the body was the main objective.

After watching tons of references and planning and adding anticipation this is my final playblast of animating a ball with a tail.

By importing scans into my scene from Quixel Bridge and focusing on the lighting I created the main scene and the mood I was going for in UE5. The next stop will be adding snowfalls with physics and the Niagra System.

My first attempt to import mountain terrains and create snow materials in Substance Designer was a big-time failure. I spent hours working with graphs and materials I couldn’t figure out the tessellation system in UE5 so I had to start over and focus more on scans as I like my scene to be as realistic as possible.

Pendulum Animation:

In physics, motion refers to the change in an object’s position over time. In this type of movement caused by force, Newton’s laws will emerge. Whenever we want to talk about Newton’s laws, acceleration, speed, body mass, gravity, etc will come into play. So there is a beautiful interweaving between physics and animation that makes animation even more interesting.

The law of inertia in physics, known as Newton’s first law; states that a stationary object tends to maintain its position unless acted upon by an external force. Moreover, Inertia in animation causes “Follow through” and “Overlapping action”.

Newton’s second law states that when a force is applied to an object, the object accelerates in the same direction as the force; Acceleration is defined as the change in velocity per unit of time, so that when you accelerate an object in the direction of its motion, the velocity of that object increases and increases.

It is also possible to apply force to an object in the opposite direction of movement so that the object’s speed decreases, and if the applied force remains, the object moves in the opposite direction until it stops and even accelerates. Keeping all of this information in mind and planning the animation this is my final playblast of the pendulum animation.

The first session with our tutor George was fantastic. After the introduction, we delved into the unit by learning about the 12 principles of animation and using the graph editor in Maya. Personally, animating is a skill that I’m lacking. Camera movement is crucial in environment design, and I used to struggle with it. There were times when I wanted to add characters to my projects, but my animations turned out strange, so I ended up not using them. However, the good news is that I am here to learn.

Our initial assignment was to animate a bouncing ball. We learned that the movement of a bouncing ball is similar to the movement of many other objects, such as a jumping child. Despite my first four attempts being terrible in multiple ways, I managed to accurately animate one after receiving feedback from George and making some adjustments. Finally, I successfully animated my first 3D bouncing ball.

In week 2 Serra taught us how to import scans and plants from Quixel Bridge into our scenes, also how to work in levels and sub-levels, and a whole idea of UE5 advantages over other software. With UE5 we can have Bigger worlds hence better stories. As for my first project I wanted to work with snow because it’s a bit tricky and my goal in this course is to improve myself and step out of my comfort zone. Additionally, the picture is my mood board for my UE5 project.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend this class because I didn’t have my visa and obviously not in London. This particular unit is one that I am extremely excited about because it’s related to my interest in the VFX industry, where real-time filming and virtual production skills are becoming increasingly important. Initially, I encountered a setback when UE5.3 was not functioning on my laptop, but after upgrading my graphics card and installing UE5.0.2, I am now good to go J. The entire user interface of UE5 is unfamiliar to me since this is my first time working with a game engine. However, being aware of this software’s immense capabilities motivates me to work harder and overcome any obstacles.

Week one for George’s class was ‘Introduction To Animation’. In this session we saw George’s showreel and got to know his work history, moreover, we got a clear picture of the session’s structure and what exactly we were going to learn. In this session, George talked about the importance of planning and referencing and also the rule of K.I.S.S which means to keep it simple stupid, a nice reminder for all of the students who try to do something complex and mess up the whole project. Lastly, we got informed about the week 2 assignments and watched George animating a bouncing ball.