3D Maya

I find it really hard and I cannot get my head round it. I took lots of notes because I knew I would forget. But even after taking notes I don’t remember and only know the basics and even then I still manage to mess up. I can possibly improve by continuing to use Maya. However I do not wish to pursue 3D, as it is something that I don’t want to go into in the future as I don’t feel that 3D is my thing.






However, it does have its uses. For example, deep canvas is a technology used on the Tarzan films and in Treasure Planet whereby a 3D environment was created to assist the animators in creating animation that does not look like 3D animation as we know it today. Some of the scenes would have taken months had they not used 3D programming. They then traced over it so it looks more like traditional animation. They paint over the top and paste that over the 3D models.

MOOM!

Moom was our first introduction into 3D charicter animation. Moom is a simple, rigged 3D puppet used to tech the basics of 3D puppet controll.

 Certain areas of Moom's body were locked so that we couldn't accidentally move something that wouldn't be possible in a human body and so that we didn't break him. So things like the pelvis and the waist and the chest could only rotate a limited amount but could not move up and down. It was also important to learn about parents and children. In this case the fingers are the children of the hand and the hand is in itself a child of the lower arm.

 What went well?

• Moom was fun to play around with and break
• I got some really dynamic poses from Moom.
• I was able to get some good expressions 

Would could have gone better?

• I could have been more focused and planned out what I wanted Moom to do.
• More of a variety of poses

3D Stop Motion Puppet

You make the wire armature out of various pieces of sharp, pointy metal and you twist them
together in the rough form of your puppet.
You then put Milliput on the joints so that they don’t move and they are locked in place; you do this for the shoulders and the hips. Then you get foam and you glue the foam where there would be a part of the body that would not necessarily move, your joints move but your bones don’t: rib cage, thighs, lower leg, head, upper arm and lower arm.
Then you wrap the entire thing in wadding and bandages so it looks a bit like a mummy, then you put the Plasticine on top.

However upon further research, there appears to be multiple ways of doing this that
don't require the use of foam, bandages and wadding. There are people who use a dowel and they will tape it to the leg and where the joint is. They will break it so the joint is flexible but you cannot move the leg part.There is a way of making them in America that uses a material called ProPoxy all over and they don’t use foam. You can also use silicone, which is used in Ardman animations.
Once you have created your masterpiece, you then need to bolt it down to the floor so that when you
do the walk cycle it looks like a walk cycle instead of her shuffling across the floor. You bolt it down so that the planted foot does not move while the opposite foot in motion can move.

Task 10

Response to feedback
A lot of things were suggested but not all them were recorded. So have myself a bit of feedback
based on what I remembered and picked up from the presentation.
It was suggested that I use different poses for the jump sequence, this also links to the
comment on using limited animation on the jumping sequence. I implemented this by creating a
pose to pose sequence and filling in a couple of the in-betweens.
There was a suggestion that the helmet should move faster but at the time I thought it was
fine, but after animating the additional sequences, the timing of the helmet did not fit in. I
might make it faster if I have enough time.
Someone said that I should lip sync the bad guys, and I agree I should but I don’t think I am
going to have time do this. A compromise for this would be a head wobble, to show that he is
alive and not just a still image.
It was also suggested that I should fix the rotation of the tail and the motion, because I had it
fixed in an S shape and it would move on a pivot, but tails don’t move like that, they move on a
pivot up to a point and then they snake. I will fix this if I have time.

Week 16 Last Miniute Animation, Editing and Catching up with blogs

I spent almost the whole week creating this animation. I fist looked up reference of superhero landings. As my character is heavily influenced by spider man, i used him as reference. I first rotoshoped him doing a superhero landing, then i drew my character over the top i rough, i then line arted the whole thing and coloured it in.

I had to throw together a final cut of the project. Needless to say i am not 100% happy with the final result. I used the audio from the anamatic, which i had to extend a little by overlapping it. That's why it sounds a little of in parts. This is what it looks like.

I also caught up with my blogs this week. I fixed any mistakes that i'd made and i also completed by evaluation and self graded myself. Which came out to an average of 47%

What went well?

• During this project my drawing skills have improved massively
• I think my timing has improved a little
• Editing of the initial anamatic was good

What could be improved?

• the music and sound effects. For example i should have created a fresh mix of the audio and i could have added in sound effects especially for the zipper and the parkouring across the rooftops.
•  Some of the shots could have been more cinematic. 
• It also suffers from middle of the frame syndrome, where by i put everything in the middle of the frame. I will keep this in mind for the next project and i will push myself out of my comfort zone by putting the action to the left third or right third. i will also study cinematography and look at different shots to get a better sense of how to make my animations more cinematic. 

Week 15 Almost finished, More animation, editing, bits and bobs

Part of my anamatic has a scene where Billie is jumping and leaping from rooftop to rooftop, chasing down the bad guys. Had i known that i was going to be animating this fully i would have left this scene out in favor of a simpler one. However, been suggested to use limited animation to make the process easier.                                                                                      

 

 

i had fun creating an animated sequence of Billie putting on the suite. I did this because i thought that simply putting on a helmet wasn't enough. In addition to this it also provides me with a few extra seconds of animation to add to the finished product.

to understand the movement, i tried to rotoscope myself putting gloves on. This helped me to understand how the gloves would move as i put my hand through. Unfortunately i ran out of time to animate this full the way o wanted.

What went well?

• thought the project i have been struggling to draw cartoon-ish hands. I feel as though i have gotten much better at this. Now to the point where i feel comfortable putting them into my animation.
• The shot of the zipper turned out really well. Ash, in 3rd year suggested i use a tracking shot and it worked really well

What could be improved?

• the usual, time manajent
• the colouring, espechally on the zipper scene could be more accurate. In the future  i will take better care when shading