Category: Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques

I learned so much in this module; it was super challenging and demanding, yet incredibly rewarding. In the first term, I delved into the intricacies of previs, developing my idea for my FMP. George taught us about the critical role of previs in the film and animation industry, emphasizing how it allows us to visualize and plan scenes effectively before full-scale production. Previs helps in laying out performances and camera angles in a filmable way, making it an essential step for any animator to understand.

After the previs phase and a short break, we shifted our focus to an advanced body mechanics shot. Body mechanics in animation is based on understanding and replicating realistic human movement, which is fundamental for creating believable animations. Coming up with an idea for this shot was a bit challenging initially. I started with a concept involving a character jumping over a stairway and then rolling to avoid a car. However, George advised me to simplify the idea, focusing on one jump and perfecting it, which significantly improved the quality of my animation.

The beast of this term was the acting shot. As someone with more experience in environments than character animation, I struggled a bit with this. Lip sync in acting animation is particularly demanding, as it requires precise timing and synchronization of mouth movements to match the audio. George guided us to find audio clips that we were not familiar with to come up with fresh ideas. This helped us to create more original and authentic animations.I tried my best working on this shot and will continue to refine it in the coming weeks.

This module was tough, but I enjoyed every second of it. I feel a significant improvement in my skills across various categories, from previs to body mechanics and acting animation. The growth I’ve experienced has been invaluable. You can see all my final outcomes below.

After struggling to achieve the desired look in spline animation last week, I knew it was time to make some significant improvements. First and foremost, I focused on ensuring that every curve was in auto-tangent mode to avoid any kind of snapping in my animation. This adjustment was crucial in refining the overall movement and flow of the character.

Next, I worked on improving the character’s entrance into the frame to make it look more dynamic. Following George’s drawings, I added the recommended poses and controlled the hip movement using a motion trail, resulting in a noticeable improvement in the character’s appearance. George also suggested making the bullet hole on the character’s hat bigger and more exaggerated, which I promptly addressed. Additionally, I made sure to add the correct anticipation to the head turn, correcting the previous snappy motion caused by incorrect keyframes.

Another area I focused on was fixing the timing of the arm movement. Previously, the arm took too long to come down, creating a laggy effect. By adjusting the timing, I was able to achieve a smoother and more natural-looking motion. Despite these improvements, there are still several aspects of the animation that require further work. However, I am committed to continuing to refine and enhance the animation in the following weeks.

I wanted to talk about my experience working on the acting shot for our latest project this week. I had to animate the character saying “alright, who did this” in a specific style called spline. But before I could start, I needed to adjust the poses based on George’s feedback from our session.

George gave me detailed sketches on how to animate the character’s mouth for the line, and I made sure to use his suggestions in my work. He also stressed how important it was to make the character’s entrance into the frame look impressive and guided me on how to do that.

Even though I tried hard to make the changes and clean up the animation, I found it tough to make the shot look perfect. I really wanted to get it perfect in the time we had, but I realized that I needed more time and attention to get the result we wanted.

Looking ahead, I know I need to put more effort into refining this shot for next week. I’m determined to improve the spline animation and make sure every detail matches our vision for the project.

This week, I focused on refining my acting animation based on the feedback I received from George. Here’s a rundown of my progress and the adjustments I made:

1. Reshooting the Reference: I reshot my reference, adding a head turn at the end and changing the angle of the camera. This gave me a clearer perspective on how the character should move and interact with the environment.
2. Blocking in Maya: I started the blocking process in Maya. During my feedback session, George pointed out a few critical issues:
   • Camera and Hat Size: In my reference, my face took up a lot of space in the shot. However, in the animation, the cowboy’s hat was too big, which required the camera to be further back. This caused timing issues. To fix this, George suggested using a smaller hat and adjusting the camera focal length and transition.
   • Head Turn Mechanics: In my animation, I animated the whole body and head together, but in real life, the head turns first, followed by the body. I need to correct this in my animation to make it more natural.
   • Expressiveness and Poses: Some of my poses made the character look robotic. I need to add more emotion to the poses to make the character feel more alive.
   • Movement Issues: When the character walks into the scene, there are abrupt movements in the hip. George drew over my animation to help me understand the correct movement.
3. Blocking Plus and Lip Sync: For next week, I need to:
   • Complete Blocking Plus: This involves refining the poses and transitions to make the animation smoother.
   • Add Lip Sync: This will be a challenging task, as syncing the character’s mouth movements to the audio is crucial for believability.

I’m excited to see how these changes will improve my animation. The feedback from George has been incredibly helpful, and I’m looking forward to presenting a more polished version next week.

After finishing the advanced body mechanics, we’re now focusing on acting animation. George gave us a new task: find an audio clip that we don’t know or don’t remember the acting from, to come up with a fresh idea. The criteria for the audio were that it should be between 3-5 seconds long.

Once we find the audio, we need to draw some thumbnails and create a layout of the idea. In that layout, we should show the “before,” “now,” and “after” of the character. Additionally, we should write the dialogues of the audio and illustrate the emotions of each sentence using the emotion wheel.

Finding the right audio was the most challenging part, as George had predicted. I listened to many clips, searching for one with an emotional shift. Finally, I decided to go with an audio clip from Dwight from The Office. I’ve watched The Office many times, but luckily I don’t remember the actor’s action choices for this particular scene.

Additionally, I found a cowboy rig with a silly look and a stupid hat, which inspired an initial idea: a cowboy in a saloon, furious about something that had happened to him. After my session with George, we decided to shorten the audio to just “Alright, who did this?” and make it about a bullet hole in his hat, showing him looking pissed about it.

I realized I need to reshoot my reference because, for now, I’m looking at the camera, which isn’t good for this scene. Next week, I’ll start the animation in blocking in Maya and reshoot my reference.

Here’s my plan for next week:

1. Reshoot Reference: Make sure not to look at the camera.
2. Start Blocking in Maya: Begin animating the scene using the new reference.

I’m excited to share the final result of my advanced body mechanics shot, also known as the skateboarding shot! This journey has been both challenging and rewarding, and I’ve learned so much throughout the process. One of the critical issues I tackled was the hip movement. To fix this, I constrained a ball to the hip and approached it like a bouncing ball exercise. This technique helped me ensure that the hip followed smooth arcs and curves, making the animation more realistic and fluid.

Towards the end, the animation felt a bit too fast. To correct this, I focused on the spacing of the skateboard, making adjustments to slow down the movement appropriately. This change made the landing more natural and believable. Once I was satisfied with the animation, I rendered the scene in Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). Adding sound effects was the final touch, enhancing the overall engagement and making it more suitable for our showreel submission. The sound effects brought the scene to life, adding an extra layer of immersion.

Next Steps

In the coming weeks, I will seek final feedback from George to polish any remaining details. His insights have been invaluable throughout this project, and I’m looking forward to his final thoughts.

Week 14 was all about polishing the animation. After implementing the changes George suggested last week, I had another feedback session with him. During this session, he pointed out that the spacing of the hip was not quite right. With some draw-overs, I understood the problem more clearly. To fix the spacing, I’ll constrain a ball to the hip and turn on ghost mode in Maya, which will help me visualize and correct the hip movement.

George also noted issues with the skateboard landing. Currently, it takes too long to hit the ground, which is incorrect. To address this, I need to adjust the timing so that the character hits the ground by frame 40, with the squash pose occurring by frame 43. This adjustment should make the landing look more natural and dynamic.

Additionally, I plan to create an environment for this animation and add some props to make it a proper animation scene. However, I need to fix the animation itself first and see if I have enough time to add these elements.

Here are my key tasks moving forward:

1. Fix Hip Spacing: Constrain a ball to the hip and use ghost mode in Maya to correct the spacing and movement.
2. Adjust Landing Timing: Ensure the character hits the ground by frame 40 and achieves the squash pose by frame 43.
3. Plan for Environment and Props: Depending on the progress and time, start developing an environment and adding props to enhance the animation scene.

I’m excited to see how these changes improve the overall quality of the animation.

This week, we moved forward with our shots by transitioning from blocking to spline. Going from blocking to splining can be a humbling experience—once you change the curves from stepped, everything tends to look wrong! After spending a lot of time fixing the animation in spline and incorporating George’s feedback from last week, I had another critique session with him.

George pointed out several areas that needed improvement:

1. Skateboard Turn Speed: The turn of the skateboard was way too fast. To fix this, I need to rotate it slower to make the movement more realistic.
2. Jump Landing: One of the big problems was that the landing of the jump still looked too slow. Despite changing many things, I couldn’t get it right. George helped me understand how to fix this by adjusting some of the poses before the character hits the ground. These changes should help create a more dynamic and believable landing.
3. Starting Pose: At the beginning of the shot, my character appeared squashed on the skateboard. George suggested changing this to a more relaxed pose to set a better tone for the animation.

Here are my key tasks for the next steps:

1. Adjust Skateboard Turn Speed: Slow down the rotation of the skateboard to create a more natural turn.
2. Refine Jump Landing: Implement the pose adjustments before the character hits the ground to make the landing quicker and more dynamic.
3. Improve Starting Pose: Change the initial squashed pose to a more relaxed one to improve the overall flow of the animation.

Despite the challenges of moving to spline, I’m excited to see the improvements in my animation as I continue refining it.

In week 12, I had another insightful feedback session with George, which brought several important improvements to my skateboarding animation. George pointed out that the spacing and the curve of the jump were incorrect. With some helpful draw-overs on my animation, he showed me the correct curve I should follow to make the jump look more natural and realistic.

One crucial detail I missed was making the character come from off-screen initially. I need to incorporate this change for next week to ensure the animation starts correctly and flows smoothly. This will help establish the character’s movement and direction right from the beginning.

George also advised me to adjust the timing of the landing. He suggested making the landing quicker and emphasized the importance of creating a strong pose with a clear line of action. This will make the landing look more dynamic and impactful, adding to the overall realism of the jump.

Here are my key takeaways and next steps:

1. Correct the Jump Curve: Adjust the spacing and curve of the jump to follow the more natural path that George illustrated.
2. Start Off-Screen: Make sure the character enters the frame from off-screen to create a smoother and more engaging start.
3. Quicker Landing: Speed up the landing and focus on creating a dynamic pose with a strong line of action.

I’m excited to apply these changes and see how they enhance the animation.

We’re back for a new term, and I’m excited to dive into our first project: an advanced body mechanics shot. In our first week, George taught us the importance of planning our shot thoroughly. He emphasized that the initial idea should be simple and not overwhelming. Here’s a breakdown of the process he guided us through:

1. Come Up with an Idea: The idea should be straightforward to keep the focus on mastering body mechanics.
2. Find the Reference: Look for good reference materials that show the action clearly from multiple angles if possible.
3. Shoot Our Own Reference: If you can perform the action yourself, record it for better insight.
4. Create Thumbnails: Based on the research and references, sketch out the key poses and movements.

I decided to work on a skateboarding scene where the character jumps over a stairway. After searching online extensively, I found a reference video with the right angle and composition. Since I can’t skateboard, I didn’t record myself performing the action. Instead, I’ll be working closely with the reference video I found.

Here are the steps I took this week:

1. Thumbnails: I sketched out the thumbnails to capture the key poses and movements of the skateboarding jump. This helps in visualizing the sequence before moving to 3D animation.
2. First Blocking: I created the first blocking of the shot in Maya. Initially, my idea was for the character to jump and then panic upon seeing a car, making a leap to avoid it. However, George suggested simplifying the scene by focusing solely on the jump and ignoring the car.

George also advised changing the direction of the jump to avoid the character coming towards the camera. Instead, he suggested having the character enter from the right side of the shot, make the jump, and exit from the left. This change should help in maintaining a clear and engaging composition.

For next week, I need to apply these changes and add more poses to the blocking. This will involve refining the movements and ensuring that the jump looks natural and dynamic. I’m looking forward to seeing how these adjustments improve the shot!