Motion Studies Showreel

This showreel is supposed to show character movement in particular and to see how far I've progressed since my last showreel. In particular I had to focus on character performance to make them seem alive instead of looking like moving puppets. I could have done better with some of these animations but because of the amount of other work I had to do I only had a brief opportunity to go back and improve some aspects of character performance. Now that I have the summer available, I plan to work on performance in animation as this was the only improvement I needed to work on from my first showreel. It's also one of the hardest elements to crack out of timing, weight, anticipation, overlap and performance.

I have studied character performance and motion in particular over the weeks by watching a lot of Dreamwork's Animations (Favourite studio) to see what they do to make their characters look alive. Here's what I've picked up on:

• Constantly moving, even when they're static (i.e. chest moving in out to simulate breathing)
• Facial expressions always moving (our facial muscles are always doing something)
• Not so much anticipation and overlap visible as they're trying to keep the character's movements realistic enough that exaggeration isn't required.
• Constantly performing (Just because the focus isn't always on a certain character doesn't mean their expressions should stop as well)
• Subtle is sometimes the most effective.

Obviously the simple rigs I have access to can never compete with rigs used by Dreamworks which is what makes their character's act on a whole new level but at least I can take what I've learnt from these guys and put these skills into practice. Practice makes Perfect!

Jack Frost: Rise of the Guardians- One advantage for animator's..... he flies. Therefore the lucky devils didn't have to deal with the weight factor so much. Challenges: Cloth and hair simulation, oh and the subtle addition put into the feet that allows the muscles to flatten outwards slightly when he's walking.

Hiccup: How to Train Your Dragon- Obviously, the facial expressions! He's also a spindly character which means his weight is minute so the animator's can basically chuck him around the screen and there's no additional fat to have to move around. Challenges: Same as Jack. Hair and Cloth simulation. Luckily they didn't have to deal with feet this time around as Hiccup had shoes.

 

 

Even though these two films are only a couple of years apart, I can already see the massive leaps in technology. Rise of the Guardians used a complex particle system to create Sandman's golden dream sand as well as Pitch's black sand. Then there's also the way they created prosthetic skin which they scanned in to give the character's more translucent skin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3D model and adaptation videos

3D Texture model- Three stages (Basic model, Texture and final colour)

 

 

3D Adaptation

 

 



3D Model and Adaptation Project

3D Model with texture and colour- The aim of the project was to go out and gather reference photos of textures, such as a broken wall or rusty lamp post, and replicate the textures in 3D.

I used both Maya and Mudbox to build the model and add detail and colour to create the image.

Reference photos







And the 3D replica

 

 

I didn't particularly enjoy doing this project because I found it quite difficult to replicate chipped paint in Mudbox using the brushes and textures available to me. In the end the lamp post had more rust than paint but at least I know for future reference that texturing in Maya is not what I'm interested in.

 

 

3D Animation Adaptation

 

 

This was a follow on from the 2D version of the project where I had to take an image of an environment and rebuild it in Toon Boom/Photoshop and add a camera move. This one was more enjoyable than the modelling although I had to problem solve how to add water to my scene. Throughout this project, I think I was spending most of my time just playing around with water in order to understand what effects worked the best. I went through pond shaders, ocean shaders and bump maps to find the best water interpretation and although the water is supposed to act more like a pond than an ocean I found the ocean shader gave the best effect.

Originally the scene is supposed to have waterfalls cascading from some of the rocks however I felt in Maya it made the composition too busy, as I already had a pool of water which, for me, was enough. If there had been character animation included in the scene with waterfalls then there would be too much information and the character's could easily become the least important aspects of the scene.

 

 

Walk Cycle

New motion studies assignment: The walk cycle.

I spent a lot of time after putting in most of the movement, thinking about the way joints move in the body. For example the hips and shoulders don't move at the same time: the hips would move first then the shoulders follow behind. I used the Dope sheet in Maya to offset keys relating to the different parts of the body in order to make certain areas move earlier than others. It's amazing how just moving a few keys around makes the movement so much more believable. I can see a few things I would need to correct in order for the movement to look much more fluid.

- The elbows look too stiff, more movement needed.
-The back could do with more flex

 

Emotion switch

My next motion studies assignment was to animate a switch of two extremes of emotion. So for example one minute the character is happy, the next he is sad.

Wine Glass model

Practiced using the revolve tool in Maya to model a wine glass. I then went that step further and played around with the lighting, shadows and texture to make the glass look a bit more realistic.

Horse acting

 

Showreel

First Assessment showreel

 

3D- Lip sync

Step by step of how I did the lip sync from the Die Hard scene.

 

Step 1: Draw out the key poses and break down the voice sequence.

 

 

Step 2: Map out key poses in Maya using stepped curves (Stepped lines in the graph editor).

 

 

Then more poses are added, to give more idea of movement (Second pass)

 

 

Step 3: Then I switched all stepped lines to linear curves to see what the computer made of the movement. It doesn't look too bad, although the timing for some movements is off, but this is normal as I am just beginning to work out how long poses should last for.

 

 

 

Below is the more refined linear curves as I've timed more of the poses.

 

 

 

Step 4: This is where I did some offsetting of keys to get a more naturalistic movement. The back for example doesn't fully settle into the pose until a couple of frames beforehand. It helps with the anticipation and overlap as well.

 

 

 

Step 5: The Splined curves are swapped in from linear curves, this rounds off the sharper points in the graph editor to get a fluid movement.

 

 

 

Final step: Lip- syncing. This is done last so I didn't end up relying more on the speech than the movement.

 

And here's a comparison video.

 

Lifting Weight

New assignment: Make a character lift an object whether it be light or heavy. This involved using the point constraints I practiced last week to join box to hands when Eleven picks it up. After learning about adding lights and colour to objects, I practiced using them in this assignment. I've also used the proper rendering system to make this video. Now I know how rendering feels. You're in for a long wait......

Weight

Here is the final render of showing the weight of an object, with a little twist at the end.

Analysing Weight

This is the second part to the post before where I was practicing Point Constraints and switching between IK and FK modes. With the video below I have been set the task of making Eleven push against a heavy object, this will involve using the IK, FK switch.
This assignment isn't quite finished yet. So far I have animated Eleven sizing up the object and she is just about to attempt to push it. The idea is to switch to IK mode when she pushes against the object so her hands stick in space and won't move whilst the rest of her body is using force.

Point Constraints

After falling out with Maya, we finally re-kindled our friendship and I accomplished the idea of point constraints!
A point constraint causes an object to move to and follow the position of an object, or the average position of several objects. For example this is useful for when a person picks up a pen and puts it down somewhere else.

Below is my practice for using point constraints to connect the sphere to the cube and then the cube releasing it and moving off.

The other technique is switching between FK and IK modes when a person pushes against a static object. IK is inverse kinematics, this keeps joints 'stuck' in space so if you moved the torso the arms or legs would remain glued in their initial positions. Animating in this mode is not ideal because this movement moves in straight lines, similar to a robot. FK is forward kinematics, if I moved the torso the arms and legs would move with it and not be glued in place. Animating in this mode is better because it works on rotations and human movements work in arcs.
In my practice I begin in FK mode then switch to IK mode when I want the hand to remain in place whilst she peers over an invisible wall. It's basic animating, I was more worried about understanding the kinematics than the realisic movement!

Morphy poses

My 3D assignment was to take Morphy, a model already created in Maya (by a professional!) and put him into poses that suggest an emotion. I could not use the face to emphasise the expression, only the way his body is positioned.
Below are a set of screenshots of Morphy in various positions. Guess what emotions he is suggesting. (At the bottom of the post is the answers, or should I say, my interpretation of his emotions!)

 

 

 I may have altered the position of his eyes for this one. And lowered the eyebrows.

 

 

 

 

 

Answers (or what I think the emotions are) Top to bottom: Transfixed, Courageous (or Heroic), Pleading , Disregarding, Sad.

Two Burts Walking

For this assignment I was already given a model of a character to work from (in this case Burt the robot) and I had to animate a walk cycle (where Burt walks on the spot) and a straight walk (where Burt actually walks). The most important thing I had to remember when doing the straight walk was not to move the foot that remains on the ground whilst the other foot is in the pass position. If I moved it, the foot would look like it was slipping back.
I found this easier to animate than the bouncing ball. It was more time consuming because I kept reviewing the motion and re-doing some sections to make it look right however it was more enjoyable.

Bouncing ball with a personality!

Another new maya video! This time it is a bouncing ball with character, it bounces down stairs and jumps through hoops. I'm pretty happy with this one, although I did discover, after working in just the side view of maya that when I switched to the perspective view the ball was miles away from the stairs. It was safely rescued though and below is the finished video. What have I learnt? Don't just work in the side view, work in all views when using 3D software!

Bouncing Ball- Maya Software

These are the bouncing balls I was assigned to do in the Maya 3D software I am learning.

Below is the video for the Heavy Ball, this can be seen because there is not much of a bounce after impact with the ground. The numbers underneath the video shows the frame number.

 

And this is the video for the light ball. This one has more bounce to it.