Final thoughts

I have enjoyed myself a lot over the course of this project. I have learnt a lot from taking a character all the way from concept through to animation, Which I am glad i did.
It has helped me understand the process more and made me realise how much work needs to go into fleshing out a character to make them believable.
There were several parts I found more easy to do then others, and the first being to come up with a character in the first place. I enoyed coming up with the story and the background history for my monkey, as this helped me in figuring out his physical apperance.
I enjoyed fleshing him out and coming up with the story boards.

One of the aspects I was worried about when I first decided that I wanted to take on all tasks involving the creation of my character was that I would be doing the modelling of my character in 3d. I had previously modelled my 2nd year set in maya, but I had never modelled anything organic, So this was going to be somewhat of a challange for me, As I am not very confident using maya yet and thought that I may struggle in this area. I found a pre rigged monkey online that I could use if all else failed, which helped to take the pressure of slightly.

But I was given several gnoman dvd tutorials to look at from Simon, and several others given to me from class mates, which helped me greatly. I had kept the design of the monkey purposly simple throughout my design concepts because I knew that I would be the one modelling it. I believe I created an interesting design with style which I was then able to translate onto the 3d model.This is something I feel quite proud of as I was very worried I wouldnt be able to complete it, But I stook with it and I am very happy with the results.

Another major aspect of me creating and modelling my own character in 3d was the rigging. This was something I was absolutly dreading right from day one. And I had to think long and hard before I modelled my character that is this something I wanted to try, Because if not, then I should either give my designs to someone else to model and rig, or just use a pre rigg. Because otherwise if I modelled the character then it didnt get rigged, it would be a waste of my time.

However, saying that I was quite determined (or stubborn) to carry on through the enitire process. As this is the goal I had set myself. So I finally sat down, and tried to get my head around rigging.After two weeks, over 90 saved versions, many panic attacks and sleepless nights later, I had my fully working body and facial rig. It had a few minor kinks that people had to help me iron out, but overall for my first attempt at rigging, I think it could have gone a lot worse.
I believe I am better off for going through the process. A baptism of fire if you will.
And I can honestly say, that it is the single most difficult thing I have had to learn in my whole three years of being on the degree.

I am not the most technically minded person, but I stook it out, and is something I am quite proud off. My knowledge of riggs and models will only get better and I feel more confident now I have taken that first step into understanding the process behind them both. This is an area of my skills that I feel I has definatly grown.

After that I was ready to start animating, I had been doing several test animations throughout my model making, But the whole rigging and modelling process took up quite a bit of time which unfortunatly cut into my animation time, Although this process will be quicker the next time I do it. I filmed myself acting out various movements and could see the benifits straight away in my animations, as I was able to pick out small gestures that would have otherwise been missed. I also looked at lots of footage of monkeys to see how they moved,and drew various storyboards to show my characters actions.

I feel my animations have gotten better since last year, and I feel that with the research I did in the actions, that this also helped me become more confident as it gives me another process in which to organise my planning, rather then doing a bit of planning and going straight into it. I now have video footage of myself acting scenes out, aswell as actual animal footage, and my other research I did previously to help me make the animation as good as I can.
This will be the process I follow for animation projects in the furture.

So overall I feel as though I have gained knowledge in several areas I was unsure of before, and I feel that this has helped inform other areas of my project and helped me create a piece that reflects this gain in confidence and skill.

final film submission

This is my final piece that I handed in to be marked, I decided that I prefered the version that was ambient occluded to the one with textures. Although I will try to render out a color version for the degree show. This is the movie, I havent been able to put the sound to it on blogger although the one being marked does have my music on it. There are a few aspects of the film I would like to change for the show. One of them being the style of font used for the txt, I found a good one called 'Cracked', Which went really well with my film, But unfortuantly my version of after effects didnt have it so I had to use another font. I would also like to retime the last few seconds of my film, As I feel that this goes by a bit to quick, But because of time restraints I had to get the renders started otherwise they wouldnt have been ready in time for hand in.This seems like a small aspect to overlook, but I had to render out using the computers in the studio as well as my laptop (which crashed several times and had to restart the render), So baring that in mind I really didnt have a lot of options as the computers took so long to render out my work. The first time it took over 14 hours, This time however because I handed in my work a week later due to my sick note extension, I had more computers available, but only 4 of them were opening my file, so it still took around 10 hours to render.

Here is a research video I did of myself acting out the scene were the monkey bites the brazil nut.I forgot that the part were the monkey throws the nut had been taken out a while ago, but I accidentally included the slam/throw into this. Also this is were I got the idea to delay the bottom jaw slightly when th emonkey shakes his head to create a drag. As embaressing as it is to film myself I could notice the benifits stright away, As it allowed me to pick up on small gestures that would have otherwise been overlooked.

Jump research

Here are some clips of youtube of monkeys jumping. Again I have included a playblast of my animated jump so you can see how ive implemented it.

quad walk research

Here are some video clips of quad walks I researched which I got of youtube. I have also included a playblast of my animated quad walk so you can see how I have implemented my research into my walk.

original fur texure

I did however have a go at creating a fur texture of a turtorial I found online. The turtorial was originally designed to replicate a cheetas fur, But I alterd it along the way to fit what i wanted. Although because Ive not unwrapped the uv's , I have been unable to use this as when it is applyed it does not have the affect I wanted.

monkey color

Here are some images of my monkey textured, I have just used basic colors for this one, as I have been unable to unwrap the uv's. I am still undecided as to how I am going to render out my film, either with just an ambient occlusion light, which makes my character look like hes made of clay, which I like, or with textures. My problem is that with my not being able to unwrap the uv's the textures I have may look quite flat, so I dont want to do it that way if it throws of the rest of my film.

group work, Susan

Also I am going to include Sue in my group work for her considerable help in aftereffects. This is not a program I have used often and she was very patient in explaining it to me, especially as we had both been up for over twenty four hours rendering and compositing our work.So we were both a tad sleep deprived so her help was very much appriciated. She is also going to offer help when I animate the rest of my film.

Screen shots of lighting test

This is my set with ambient occlusion applied, I really like how it looks with this light, Although if I chose to use this I would not be using all the textures that people have made for me, and it would look slightly odd when I credit them for textures when there are none on my set. I also think it would look good if everything was occluded apart from the monkeys eyes, which are blue. I could do this by just not selecting the eyes with the ambient occlusion, or I could put the eyes on a seperate layer and render that out without ambient occlusion applyed. I will be testing this idea out soon.

Here are some images of the whole thing ambient occluded.

Extension

because of my illness I have been granted an extension for my work. I had been working on handing in a half finished film, and getting the rest finished for the degree show. I had been up for over a day rendering out my chosen scenes in the studio aswell as on my laptop, which is steadily getting worse because of the virus it has. But after over 14hours of rendering I was just putting the end credits to my work when the extension was given.
I also ambient occluded my work, as I really like the effct and I am seriously considering handing in the final finished version in ambient occlusion, As it gives a really nice soft,clay feel to the characters.

Group work, textures from Dave

Here are some screen shots of the textures Dave gave to me today through email, I have applied them to the objects on the set.

Group work, Matts background

Here is the background Matt did for me in photoshop, It is just what I wanted and the style is in keeping with what I already have from other people and myself.Im going to put the image on a plane in maya and use it for my background.

illness, a big problem

Over the last weekend I have felt unwell, and today I went to the doctors and was told I have a stomach virus. This has effected my work progress as I have been unable to concentrate on the computer for very long. The doctor also gave me a sicknote saying I am to have 7 days off uni, and that if my simptoms do not improve in the next few days, I will have to go back and be tested for swine flu. This is just a precaution the NHS are taking to prevent the spread of the virus, But because I have a temperature and a sore throat aswell my doctor advised me to come back if things were not getting any better.This makes fridays hand in incredably difficult for me to try and meet. The work I have completed so far is only half of the finished timed blockout,with camera angles and expressions something I still need to work on. James has offerd to help with camera angles and I have recieved textures from people today via emails as I have been unable to work in the studio. Currently I am hoping to finish the first half of my film, and end it were the monkey starts tapping his fingers, This way I at least get in the quad walk, reaction, jump and smash. If I manage to get through that fairly quickly, then I will try and progress further with it. I hope to explain the situation to my tutors and hope that they understand the situation and take into account that I was on schedual with my work untill I became ill.

final blockout and timings

A few days ago I finished timing all the scenes I had blocked out, The only scenes which I have been unable to do are the end scenes were the monkey pushes the boulder on screen and lifts it up to try and crack the nut. Looking back I dont think I have been unable to do this because I have not worked hard. I think that I was just to ambitious in what I thought I could accomplish in the given time. That being said, the aspect which I will have to alter is the ending, which I have not blocked out, All it will be is after the monkey has thrown the turtle away, He will sigh and shake his head at the nut sadly.So I have got over three quarters of my original story in here, and the parts that have been cut due to time restraints, I feel were not completly neccesary to the story.

Music

I have also found a piece of music for my film, Its called Whimsy groove, and is an African drum piece. I only want to use the last portion of the song though.It is a royalty free piece from the website http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?genre=African.

group work, Laura

I spoke to Laura today and she showed me the tree texture she has made for me, The first image she sent me was a bit to dark, So I asked her if she could lighten it for me, and then it would be fine. Here is a picture of the texture Laura made for me. Im very happy with it and it should look nice when applied.

Blockout update

After speaking with my tutor Paul it has been decided that instead of continuing to block out the whole of my film, I should spend the remainder of my time focusing on perfecting one scene, The scene I have chosen is the part involving the turtle, As it shows interaction between two characters and would still keep the narritive of the film going. I am also going to include the part where he jumps towards the nut, and part of the reaction. This is good that I dont have to carry on blocking out the other scenes, because although I would have loved to do the intire film, It does not take anything away from the film, and will allow me to focus on just one aspect and making it as good as I can, instead of hurrying to try and finish the whole thing. I will be focusing on timeing my chosen scene during the next few days and tightening the animation.

group work for james, compositing his frames

Today I recieved the scenes I will be compositing for James, I wanted to do these fairly quickly as I have my animation scenes to start tweaking, So I did them the same evening he gave them to me. Ive never used toonboom before but it did not take me long to get to grips with the colouring system on it and I managed to get all the scenes coloured in a few hours. Here are some images of the compositing process.

model turn arounds

This is a fairly big post, These are the finished model turn arounds I have been unable to upload untill now. They show both the smoothed and proxy versions of the model aswell as the wireframe so that you can see how clean, or unclean the mesh is in both versions. They are done using playblasts so the quality is not perfect but it should be good enough to judge from. There is also a poly count in the corner of each playblast for each version.

jump block out

This is the blockout for the monkey jump, Again the timings are off, But I am focusing on getting all the key poses done, As I can then move on to timing and spacing the keys once I have something to work with. As of today the only things left for me to block out are the biped walk off screen, which is only a few seconds, and the scene involving the boulder. So I am currently over three quarters blocked out for my final film. I know there are several things wrong with the jump, all of which will be resolved in the finished version, such as the delayed landing etc.

quad walk monkey 1

This is the first block out I tried, the other quad tests I did before this one was unfortunatly lost when my laptop crashed. This took me around a week to do, as I did several practise walks which were lost. I think overall it is good first quad walk, as their are many different aspects to be taken into account when animating a quad. The problems I have noted for the time being are that the legs kick out to much and the action of the feet leaving the ground is not smooth enough. Also the monkey does not always move consistantly forward. My tutor Paul had quickly viewed this piece in class and said that the reason for it sticking slightly is due to me having key framed the walk on two's, rather then fours, which he suggested would make the action a lot smoother. These are all points I will be working on to correct once I have the initial blockout complete.

turtle smash rough blockout

Recently blogger has not allowed me to upload my movie files so I have been unable to keep as up to date with things like test animations and turn arounds of my finished model which I will eventually put up, Here is a playblast of the block out of the turtle smash part of my film, The timings are off but I have been trying to get the key poses in before I tweak the times.

uv mapping again

I just realised that when my laptop crashed it took with it my uv mapped monkey, so ive just had to go back and redo it again, ive not unwrapped them, because it would take a long time and im planning animations, if I have time near the end to spend a bit more time on it then i will.But at the moment my priority is my animation.

more animation planning

here is some pics of me planning out some of my animation scenes, they might be a bit awkward to see as i worked on an a3 sketch book, but i scanned it in anyway:)

Group work, Jay's model update

At the moment I have blocked out around 3 quarters of my film, ive come up to the part were there is a close up of the monkeys face, and when I tried to add blinks to the blockout the eyelids were slightly effecting the left leg and a finger on the right hand, so I will have to talk to Matt about what may be causing it as he was the one who fixed my models eyelids, at first I thought it was a paintweighting issue with my monkey, but everything seems fine, so the problem must lie in one of the four duplicate models matt created to enable my model to blink, and as I dont know what he did to create them , im not going to interfere about with it incase I make the problem worse.

It doesnt look like a major problem to fix though, all being well, as for the turtle model , there is a strange problem that happens whenever I rotate it, the model starts turning black, at first I thought maybe Jay had accidentally impported a light into my scene when he gave me the model but thats not the case, so its going to have to go back to him so he can fix it, as I need the model asap, other wise the scene with him in will be cut, which I really dont want. so these are the problems which I hope will be fixed soon, other then this the work is going good.

Group work,Dave update

Dave let me know yesterday that he wont be able to finnish all the textures for my set because of time restraints, but I have seen the head model texture on his blogger which looks great.I asked Laura if instead of doing my end credits if she would be willing to have a go at the other few bits of texturing for me, and she said she would, so the majority of the texturing of the set will now be done by Laura.

the graph editor

I did a quad walk which me and other class mates looked at yesterday.And today aswell, ive gone and fixed the problems which we saw, also im having to carry on the walk cycle to the tree without looping it in the graph editor, we took monkey for a loop walk today but for some reason the forward translate wouldnt work right, so instead of spending days trying to figure out why we said it would be easier and waste less time to just go and finnish the walk of myself, which is what I shall be doing tomorrow, I had to use the graph editor to fix certain parts on the hand slides, as even when I copyed the values across the hands were still sliding through the floor, the graph editor is something I try to avoid if I can because it confuses me, but there was no other way to solve this problem so i stuck it out and managed to understand it better. here are some images of my walk being fixed

Group work, Jays turtle model

This is Jimmy the turtle that jay modeled,rigged and textured for me, their are a few problems with the textures changing colour in the render, but im sure thats easily fixed, im very happy with the model that jay has done for me, he did it very quickly and i was able to carry on my animation planning with no waiting around for the model. heres some images.

ik on monkey model

Their was a small worry today as I went to do another practise quad walk, I wanted to change it to IK but when I did the arms deformed quite badly, after playing around with it for a bit I found that the problem was that the elbow tabs on the rig needed to be moved out the way of the model, as when it touched it kinda broke the arm and twisted it. I thought it was originally a fault with the rig,and perhaps i had put the elbow widget in at a strange angle. But it appears to be in full working order.

monkey colours

I attempted to put the colours from my turn arounds onto monkey. They look ok just not like fur, also I did the textures on the proxy version thinking it would transfere onto the smoothed mesh, this hasnt happend so for now im going to give texturing a rest and see if it can be transferes across when I speak to the tutors, either way this is probably what my monkey will end up look like when he is textured.

Group work, Daves environment complete

Dave has just emailed me my set, its not got textures on yet because the files were to big to send over, I sent dave some concept art of what I wanted my set to look like, and hes done it perfectly, im really happy with the way its turned out, he asked me if it was ok to incorprate some mayan ruins into the scene,and as that is a theme of mine which I made him aware of, I gave him a free run with it , I thought it would be good to give Dave some artistic freedom with it, and it has paid off because its just like how I wanted it, great work and im very happy with it, he got it to me in good time, here are some screen shots.

2nd attempt at uv mappiing

Spent the weekend having a go at uv mapping, the uvs havent been unwrapped yet as I came across a problem doing it, but ive put mapping on all areas of the body now so even if I texture without unwraping it should look a lot smoother.

Heres my 2nd atempt, I had problems selecting certain faces, and I found that some of them are facing inwards, I dont know how it has happend but I have, but i worked round it.