Friday, 15 May 2009

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.

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

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.

Friday, 8 May 2009

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.

Tuesday, 5 May 2009

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.

Monday, 4 May 2009

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.