Maya 5.5 - Animation Submission

The animation is finished and ready to be submitted, I probably could have spend more time on it but I am happy with it as it is now and don't want to over do it. Below is the animation iteself, my Technical Brief Summary and Reflective Evaluation.

Behind Tears of a Clown

Technical Brief Summary

The hardest and in my opinion also the most crucial part of the animation project was to correctly rig the character because it is important to be able to effective control the body to convey character’s body language. The legs and feet play major part in the animation so I have crated “reverse-foot” rig by using joint, IK and FK handles to be able to move the feet naturally and have great control over them. 

The feet move on and off the unicycle paddles so I have used Colour Blend node between the group that controls the feet controller and locator constrained to the paddle. That was I was able to control when the feet move freely in the set, while the character walks for example and when they follow the paddles so it looks like the character is paddling, I believe it was more effective than to key frame the feet and paddle individually throughout the animation.  

  

Another important part was to currently parent and group the individual elements, such as the body mesh, unicycle, IK handles, controllers and so on. I have used main controller to move around the character with all the controls but I have used a group to group all elements that were required to move together. 

 

Reflective Evaluation

After I have decided on the character trait and action I have conducted research on the emotion and its body language, as well as researching ideas for character design. After looking at several images I drew few design ideas for the character, a sad clown. The face was one of the most important parts for me because I have decided to use a texture for the face, for I wanted to use the body to convey the emotion instead relying on the face animation. In the end I thought run-down and messy clown make up with sad expression would work the best.

In the final animation the face is texture is small and not greatly detailed because I just wanted it to show the expression but not stand out too much. For the same reason the character has mainly only basic pale colours. If I had more time to work on the texture I would take the time to stich the UVs together in a better way so it would have been easier for me to paint it.

When deciding colours for the character and the set I have somewhat kept the Colour Theory in mind and picked pale greens and blues mainly, in attempt to make the set appear cold yet not too depressing. Few parts are in red so there is some contrast in the colours.  

The main problems I had while animating were the hands. I have used IK handles that I believed would make it easier for me but it was really hard to animate smooth curves when the arms moved, I believe FK handles would have been more efficient and helpful to animate the arm more easily, it helped me to learn just how important the rigging process is and to plan it more ahead.

Maya 5.4 - Cry Clow, Cry!

I believe I have finished my animation with the clown. Would have probably spend more time on it if I didn't play Baldur's Gate DAII for like 9 hours yersterday. But nevertheless I am happy with it, I dont think it needed more. Might play more with the renders in uni to make it lil bit slower, maybe will just try to expand the keyframes somehow. The snapping between the clown on the floor and him falling seems to quick. Anyway, here is screenshot and then the render.

Maya 5.3 - Walk Clown, walk

Took me a while to do all I wanted, had to keyframe bunch of parts and make sure they flow nicely, also adding Squash and Stretch to the belly was somewhat of  a paint, not to mention bending to the heair, and too many distractions as well, but I am happy with it. Now only if the numbers in my head would stop.., 1, 7, 13, 19, 25....

Maya 5.2 - Let the animating begin!

Yesterday finished sorting out the movements and controls for the wheel and feet. Today I build small scene and set the character into its starting position, just gotta remember to key everything now and its ready to animate. Starting way later than I planned to, but I have 5 days for it, so should be all good.

Maya 5.1 - It spins!

Since the last post I have created a unicycle model and managed to set it so the clown's feet are following the paddles, so animating it is relatiely easy now, at least that part when he rolls around on it. I have about a week to finish the animation and remaking everything I did in uni at home is annoying, fucking 2012 files keep crashing when I try to Save or Save As in Maya 2011.

I am not sure yet if I can make it move forward easily or not, so far the main control alone doesn't work, but will see, it shouldn't take too long to fix.Anyway, here is test render of the feet rotating and following the paddles.

Maya 5.0 - Rig done

Finished the rigging finally, to bind the skin I am using the interactive tool thingy, which is easy enough but my PC is being a bitch and keeps crashing Maya each time I am trying to open the legs joint. I think I can do them separately but I'd rather work on one side and teh other be done automaticaly. Will try it on campus on Monday, if it wont work there either I just do each leg separately. For now only the legs are a problem and also around the shoulders a bit, still need to make it a bit better. Also started texturing it, it wont be great, but if I have time I use the UV editor to stich the automatic UV layout together so I can paint more easily.

Maya 4.9 - More Clown Rig

Took a lot longer than I planned, but thats because more deadlines sneaked up on me so I had to concentrate on another work, and I been lazy to post on the blog all the time. Had few problems with this, especialy rigging the arms and making the controls follow the joints and not screw up movement. Everytime I used pole vector the IK wouldn't follow the main control for everything, but then I just added another controler for the IK and problem solved. Also had problem with main control, making everything follow it porperly, turned out I need to parent constraint the root joint to the body control. I think the rig is ready now and just need to texture the character, shouldn't take too long, I will use projections mostly, only the face will be painted nicely. Here is pic of the rig:

SWTOR

So I was working on my rigging when I got email I can download SWTOR for Beta Testing weeked, of course the game is more important than anything else on this planet so I had to pause and download it. When I saw this on my PC:

 

I thought I am going to cry from joy =D  I only wish I already had my new PC because I can see it now it wont run very well on this old one I have for now, but oh well, better than nothing! As soon as it finished downloading I am doing back to the rigging, only needs arms which I can do quickly and then it should be more or less finished.

Maya 4.8 - Clown Rig

Taking bit longer than planned at first but I am learning a lot about rigging and how to do it efficiently. So far I have finished controls and IKs/FKs for one leg and part of the spine, need to finish that one and arms. Once I have one side done the other side will be quick. I really want to get it done this week, I have lots of other stuff to work on.

MEL script 0.2 - Lab Work Grades

On Monday we got our labwork results, I managed to get 76.5 on it, which was highest from the whole class so I am was happy. Final deadline is getting closer too fast, but idea is to make like a forest generator, similar to city generator, but with trees, flowers, gravestones, etc. Something I can model quickly and make good code for.

Maya 4.7 - Clown Skeleton Test

So my quick rig test turned into few hours of learing how to rig all over again, I could remember some stuff but not enough of it, fortunately I found this really good tutorial on Youtube and it helped me to get my skeleton together and hopefuly also make controls and all that. I didn't have time to make the controls yet, I just finished the skeleton but did a quick Skin Bind test to see how the mesh deforms and I am quite happy. I do need to adjust how some of the joints affect the mesh but that was expected, though the areas I was worried about, eblow, knees and joints like that came out well enough, which suprised me. I think its because now I know better how the rig affects the mesh so I can prepare it. Here is picture of the skeleton and quick pose test of fat clown playing basketball!

Maya 4.6 - Clown model Progress

Today I did some progress on the clown model, tweaked some vertexes around as well as added hands and combined both halfs. I think last thing to do is to finish the face. I will try to do some rough rig and see how it will work, just in case it will need some changing. Then it will be off to texturing it, depending on how much time I'll feel I have I will either keep it simple or do draw texture for everything, so far I mainly plan the torso and face, other stuff can be simple colours. Once the rig is finished then its just the unicycle model and the scene and I can animate it.

Match Moving 0.3 - Manual and Automatic Tracking

Learning Matchmoving has been kind of slow process, I have to read a lot and didn't start actually working in the program will like a week ago. Still have a while to go and be better at it, but I think I am understaning the basics quite well and should be able to solve stuff. Things I am not sure about yet is about cameras and working with it in the anmation program (Maya in my case) but I will get to that soon. I have finally managed to get Matchmover to render image sequences so I can make videos out of them with my tracking markers to show. For now I have two vidoes, Manual Matchmove of Blue Screen and Automatic track of city pan. For now I personally preffer manual tracking, it might take longer but I feel it gives me greater control over the matchmove.

Maya 4.5 - Clown model

I should have started on this much much sooner, but today I have done most of the model, so I am happy. Need to finish the hands, face and some details, but then it should be ready for rigging. Not sure yet how I will do that, either myself or will try to look for some script or finished rig I could just apply, will see. I have to think about what all I want it to do, so I think I will just end up rigging it myself. I have done the model from scratch but followed a tutorial I found, it was useful but I was struggling with the head as it wasn't covered in the tutorial much, though I think it came out all right for now. Also the tutorial helped me to realize if I wont model from reference I can just model with closed eyes, it was really helpful. I did my reference picture by editing something I found on the net. Here are some images for the mesh and progress. Think week I have to finish the mesh, textures and rig it, maybe the rigging I will give extra week, but just wanna animate ASAP.

Maya 4.4 - Rocket Animation Final

Been a while since last update but I wasn't just wasting time, I have been actually doing some work, which wasn't easy but things are calming down at home. Anyway, I have finished the Rocket animation, didn't come out exactly as plannet because I didn't want to spend too much time on it, my fault for not working on it more often. Though since the topic was subtle emotions and movement I think it came out all right.

Maya 4.3 - Rocket animation First Test

Today I have finally started on the animation. I did change my storyboard, but dont have digital copy of it yet, gonna upload it soon. The idea is there is shot on two rockets, mean and big looking that take off quickly. The camera always moves from left to right so their eyes are in the shot first. Then the camera moves again but nothing is there, so it looks down and there is a little rocket with a sign in front of it. For now my idea is it says "Out of Service". The rocket sighs, looking really sad, then it kicks the sign and jumps off from the shot.

I have the scene ready and already animated the first two rockets. Getting teh scene clean and ready was kinda a bitch, its still not perfect but my teacher is to blame, it was suppose to be ready to animate. For now I did render of the two rockets but it looks like the same one repeating itself, I think I need to make them look different a bit, like adding numbers. The camera kinda jumps the way I dont like between them but there will be a shot of lights, red and green one. Maybe it will even be shot on red after the eyes, then camera zooms out, then green and rocket takes off. But I can do all that at the end.

Match Moving 0.2 - Matchmover

Matchmoving is quite interesting and so far I am enjoying it, only if my program would actually work correctly. I was doing some tutorial for the book I am reading the other day but my Matchmover 2011 wouldn't render preview video, what was rather annoying and put me off. I will have to try it on campus and will see, might end up in labs for few hours just doing matchmoving. It is certainly something I would like to get into as a job.

Even found screen on my desktop today:

Windows Phone App - Elementals

I wont be posting often about this but wanted to mention it now, next post will probably happen when its finished.I am helping one of the final year programming students to design game for Windows Phone. He is doing all the coding and I am making the graphics. It all has to be done from scratch beause he wants to publish it when its finished I believe. Fortunately WP design is kind of simple and we want to stick to the Metro style, so all the graphic looks fairly simple. The game will be made out of four games, each themed as one of the four element, hence the name. So far I have finished Noughts and Crosses graphic (fire) and pretty much done with Hangman (wind) images. Its all drawn by me in PhotoShop CS4. Here are some images of the interface. When I have them I will upload photos of how it looks on the phone itself.

Maya 4.3 - Rocket animation

So firstly I have decided to change titles a bit, still keeping the numbers to keep easy track of it but also adding short title to make it easier to see what the post is about, it kinda a pain trying to find something specific in just numbers.

Now to the post itself. We got first feedback from the Advanced Animation, I did good on the storyboard, got 75% but I think it could have go more if I'd put some text on it to explain the shot and maybe some timing too. Google Calendar got only average because I didn't use up the whole timeline. I found the whole think kind of confusing, didn't like we had to use it, it would have been much more easier to just write it down normally. I would have got better mark that way.

But anyway, we got a tast to create rocket animation over next three weeks, I hope to finish it mostly this week and then just spend time polishing it and begin working on my final animation. This is my first storyboard but it will change mostlikely. I want my rocket to look really sad or depressed that it is not good enough to fly.

MEL script 0.1

Over last 4 weeks I have been learning MEL script for Technical Scripting class. Its not very hard, reminds me of VB (Visual Basic) a lot. Just like with C++ and VB I don't enjoy spending more time on debugging it than actually writting it, though MEL is not so bad so far I didn't spend much time debugging my own code, only forgot semi-colon here and there. I think I spend more time helping people to debug the code we are given from out tutor in tutorials. Which is kinda annoying, you'd expect the code that we are suppose to copy and paste to be correct. But anyway, over the weeks we had to do different lab works while we were learning different stuff. The week 4 labworks includes them all pretty much.

I have taken mine bit further than we were suppose to in the UI design and layout, I like my things to look pretty. It wasn't always easy because making procedure for dynamic file path work BEFORE I knew about procedures was a pain, just like was looking for how to include image. Which is really simple but nowhere on the net I could find it, my file paths never worked hence why I ended up using procedure for dynamic file path. Since Blogger wont let m upload text files or even just use kind of spoiler tool (like on forums) I wont be posting the scripts, sore are just too long. Here are just some images of what they do. The first is from my very first script, it makes cubes to be arranged in LILITH formation. Then the other two are my Week 2 and Week 4 UIs.

Overall I think MEL can be useful, its not that hard to understand and I will probably use it my future projects. Don't know about developing my own tools, but you never know.

Maya 4.2

Today we talked a lot about subtle movements and body language for characters, how important they are to show emotions and non-verbal communications. I have decided to research sad/depressed/submissive emotions for my homework. I am also thinking making different animation, I want my character to be really really sad.

I did this animatic for my current storyboard, its not perfect because of lack of good software, I need to find something good and reliable for making videos out of images. PhotoLapse failed me and Windows Movie Maker sucks, so the animatic is about three times longer than it should.

Animated Yorkshire

This was an event I have attended on Sunday 9th with my classmate Sarah. It was a workshop about Stop Motion, run by Ashley Dean from Broken Pixel studio. There was lots of people so it wasn't very technical but we got to design and make a character and then animate it a bit. We used small blue-screen set-up to animate them, which was interesting to see how easy and quick it was with a camera and peace of blue paper. Apparently the animations we did will be combined with bigger animation and it will played on Bradford Animation Festival this year. I think it will be great to see my character on big screen.

This is picture of my character, party Zombie Bob and then me and Sarah when we were leaving. And as you can see there are happy Goths =D

Video Production 0.2

Today was actually fun too, instead of operating cameras and recording we were learning how to use EditCut Pro on Macs, which was kinda annoying because Apple Macs are just weird. I managed to see the recordings we did but unfortunately I was able to only get a copy of the recordings we did before, with the girl mentioned in previous post about Video Production. The editing was fun, it was just lots to take on at once so it was fast, but once I understood the functions it wasn't hard.

I was trying to get screenshot of the video and PS was doing something really bizarre. I PrintScreened my screen with the video on, pasted into PS but when I tried to shrink it or move it the image of the video wouldn't move, everything else did but the still of the girl didn't change, no matter how many new files I made or layers, just stayed the same and appeared only in frames of the video player too, regardless of its size. If it doesn't make sense... it didn't to me either.

Anyway, here is the image after I finally found my way around it.

P.S. Fuck QuickTime player and DivX, all fancy and shit and can't play damn MOV video. I had to download VLC player to be able to see it.

Maya 4.1

No animation or modelling today but I have done my first story board for the clown. Tommorow I gotta finish all the other stuff for animation class, like callendar and self-assesment. Might even do more storyboards and will do an animatic, dont have Flash though, so might just use Maya or Photoshop, it will be only a simple thing. I think thats all about that. Took on some more projects but those are about 2D graphic, so will post about it later.

Here is the storyboard and some sketches. The character is going to be simple, but should give enough for Squash and Strech, different timings and overlapping animation. The clown basically will sadly walk into the shot, then bring his unicycle forward so he can sit on it and then get up. He will ride forward, the camera will zoom out and he will turn around and go the other way. Then she slows down and almost falls back, though instead he falls down forward. Sitting on his knees he starts to cry.

Might actually make it a girl clown, will see when I start modelling it.

Maya 4.0

Somehow Maya 2012 refuses to install on my PC, which was a bitch because I uninstalled 2011 first and then had to install it again after successfully failing in getting 2012 installed and of course they are switching to 2012 in uni so half the files I wont be able to open at home. Anyway, we have to do some practice animations for anticipation so I made one with combined stuff we practiced over the two weeks. I have to get down story board for Friday, I either want to do something with a pixie or a sad clown. We have list of emotions and activities, so for now I am thinking Sad Circus Perfomance, I was thinking a clown with unicycle looking really depressed and sad or maybe a Pixie opening a small present while angry. Both might be fun to do.

For the week 2 practice I did character animation about a space rocket, models were given to us. Oh yeah and I got Youtube channel now too, Flickr is annoying with video limit and blogger was bitchy to upload vidoes the other day. http://www.youtube.com/user/LilithPeterAnimation

Maya 3.9

Okay, I didn't finish that plane yet... but I started doing animations again. In this semester we are doing Advanced Character Animation which seems more fun, just not sure what I want to do yet, I think I will do something with fairies/pixies, kind of like a tribute to the work I did in college for my last year assigment when I was learning Flash.

So far we were playing a bit with Graph Editor for animation and then had to make a combined animation with stuff moving in it. We had few practice scenes with target and arrows and ball and such.Here is what I did, here is just a link to Flickr, Blogger was taking a piss uploading it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterlilith/6212489508/

Match Moving 0.1

Not much to say for now, beside that it seems really good so far. I am reading this recommended book about Match Moving and I think I will try to get a job as matchmover. It seems like the type of job I'd like to do for a while, can't wait to get started on it.

Video Production 0.1

New (Academic) Year is upon us and so more work, which is quiete exciting. Might have start updating this earlier, but didn't have much to show yet. It week 2 only and I already think the classes are better than before, though also more work at home, especially if I wanna get placement next year.

Anyway, this class is real fun, the teachers are great and the subject is great too. I know some of it from High School so wont be such a problem for me, hopefuly and I am sure with my hand-picked team we can come up with some cool stuff. Our main idea so far is 2 minutes parody of Snow White, not sure what expectaly yet as we all seem to have different ideas, but there will be lots of "easter eggs".

So far we are not focusing on it in the class yet, we only do group meetings to get our  script/storyboard down soon. In the class we had introduction and today we did short filming after training with cameras, which was fun! I got to be the director-ish and camera man for our group. There was also pretty helper girl that we got to record acting, so it was a fun day. Only it was really windy, like a lot so sometime it was hard to keep still.

Some pictures from today of me and my group, my fourth minion was taking the pics so not in the shot =P

Maya 3.8

Had some hard time last few days, so needed to take a break. I think some of it was because I didn't want to end up doing what I do every other day, PhotoShoping, and unfortunately the tutorials were mainly about making the texture in PS. Decided to work on it more today and I like how it came out. Need to finish the rest tomorrow and improve the text on the side. Then there is problem with smooth and UVs going funny on the wings, so might need to fix that too, the smooth edges go over black areas and stripes aren't straight. Other than that I have done the colour map, bump map and specular map.

Maya 3.7

Finally have finished watching the tutorials, more or less, so now I can work at my own pace with the texture. I have done colour, bump and specular map for the body, though its missing still some of its painting and decals, the tutorials have been showing only one wing so the rest I did without help. I think the specular map did help to bring out the subtle differences in the metal colour, though that might have been due to stronger light in the scene. Think tommorow I can finish, or at least be close to it that I dont have to pause every half and hour or so. Then its the other part of the plane to do, but those should be fairly simple, will see how it goes. Here is latest render.

Maya 3.6

Been working since morning but still didn't do enough progress I think. I watch tutorials and work on my texture between then, which isn't fast and takes some time, but I am making steady progress. It takes a while because I want it to look good and as I mentioned before I am working on 2k square, so its big too and UVs my plane takes most of the space as it should.Since last update I have added dirt, dust, some more detailing to the metal, rust and started on the decal. I am no 100% sure on those, but I do like them so far. My logic behind them they are stickers and would get damaged first at front because of the air flow when the plane flies. Overall I am aiming towards damaged/veteran looking plane that just got out of a fight, like landed after a mission. I do like it how its coming out. I love texturing =)

Maya 3.5

I think this project is getting longer then it should because my PC just takes so much time to process stuff, to a point where it really frustrates me, but its better than nothing at all. Been working on making teh texture most of the day and I think I finally have the base of it down for better part. At first there was some time wasting with cutting out additional paint panels, but overall the tutorials have been helpful. I do like how its coming alone, but watching turotials, then making it myself is time consuming so its not as fast as when I would do it all by myself. Though I have learned some new tips and tools for PhotoShop, but mostly been using my own techniques to make the texture.

The first is picture is just basic colours of pain and decals. Second one is render where the panels have been given new colour and some variation to look more real. The third has even more details and weathering on the panels then second, I believe its almost done, as far as base of the silver-ish metal goes, will add some more marks later on, like dust, bullet holes and rust. Under it is the texture itself, though its only 25% of the original one, I am working on 2k square format.

 

Maya 3.4

Didn't do much in the afternoon and before that because I was sleeping and then cleaning my room, but I did catching up in the evening, so hence why this is posted after midnight. It has been kinda slow progress because I had Maya and PhotoShop open while working with 2048x2048 textures and renders, this PC just couldn't keep up. Can't wait to get new one in September. I wish I would have done these tutorials a long time ago when I was still working on my university project, it would have helped me so much. Been an idiot wasting all that time, seriously. Knowing about projecting textures and baking them, I wouldn't have to go through all the shit I did and probably would score higher as well. Well, lesson learned the hard way. Also PS CS4 exdented doesn't have Extraction filter... rip off. It has been great learning about this texturing, it will help me a lot. Personally I think some of the projecting was unnecessary because lots of the decals could have been just drawn onto the main texture with panels, which I think could have been done first. It might have saved time and wouldn't require extracting decals from white background later. Here is my P-51 "Devil's Daughter" so far, its still work in progress, but it will get there soon enough.I should mention its low-poly mesh, no smooth yet.

Maya 3.3

Didn't do as much as I wanted to today, spend most of the day in town playing Warhammer, but tomorrow is Sunday and no plans, so I can work much more. I was going to do more tutorials but had problem with Projecting textures. In the video its Maya 2008, the interface was little bit different, there was no option for 2D Projection when you selecting colour for Material, so I had to do some looking around and eventually managed to find out that you can right-click on File and select As Projection, then it had all the options and stuff like in the video, so did some decals on my p-51 model and gonna watch at least one more before bed. Working on the DP-20 model too a little, just gave it some basic colour and later will give it more detailed ones.

Maya 3.2

To practice polygon modeling I have chose to do DP-20 Gunship from Star Wars, its fairly simple so I could quickly practice tools and will help me with refreshing memory on cylider textures. I was mostly worried I have forgotten all those shortcuts and quick ways of selecting menus, but I didn't =D From time to I did try to use PhotoShop shortcut, but otherwise mostly good. The whole model is mainly one piece, just the rear block, guns and some details are separate. Tried to limit faces as much as possible, not including the ones I didn't need. Textures will come tomorrow most likely.