A blog documenting the creative process regarding my University module titled 'Moving Image Project'. I have been given a relatively broad brief, it must be a film/animation lasting 3-5 minutes. I have decided to make a 3D animation and use Autodesk Maya to model, rig and animate. I will different software to composite, but am unsure of what to use at the moment.
Wilhelm Freddie - “En Families Genvordigheder” (The Trials Of A Family) (Oil on canvas) 1940. The colours in this picture work extremely well, especially the sky.
Week 1 - Finding Inspiration During Summer: During summer I was constantly absorbing my surroundings, trying to find inspiration for my 3rd year final project, a 3D animation. Amid a trip to the Danish national gallery in Copenhagen I saw the work of Wilhelm Freddie (1940), a Danish painter and sculptor. His surreal work instantly grabbed my attention. After Salvador Dali, this was merely my second encounter with Surrealism. Two weeks subsequent to this, I started watching David Lynch's cult series 'Twin Peaks' (1990). Again, the surreal nature of this programme grabbed my attention. I started doing more research into Surrealism and watched many more David Lynch films, a month later I acknowledged my growing passion and decided a surreal animation would be visually challenging and give me vast creative freedom.
References:
Twin Peaks, Season 1. 1990. ABC.
Freddie, W. 1940. En Famalies Genvordigheder. [Oil on Canvas] . At: Copenhagen: National Gallery.
Week 1 - 3D Modelling Tutorials: When I got back to Leeds in mid September, I started following some online tutorials regarding Autodesk Maya. Eric Lyman has three lectures totaling around 4 hours and 29 videos. The second lecture he made a birdcage and in the third he made a fire hydrant. I have now completed all of these. I found the process very rewarding, it took me around a week to complete at the tutorials as I had to re-watch many different parts. I do now however feel confident using Maya's basic modelling tools.
References:
Lyman, E. 2014. Intro to Maya and 3D modelling. [Online]. [Accessed 15 September 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTaGYFJ5J4g&list=PLX7gtljLBwKbtQmoCy3C7etH8C_LYTIO0
Week 2 - Deciding on the Desert and Forming a Narrative: After doing some research into surreal animations, I found one called 'Destino' (2011) an animation storyboarded by Walt Disney and Salvador Dali in 1945. Although they never completed the animation, it was finished by Dominique Monféry and Roy Disney in 2003 (2011). I like the surreal imagery used in the piece, it feels like being inside a Dali painting. However there is very little narrative and this I do not like, the animation does not keep my attention, its broken flow causes me to feel disengaged at times and the piece feels a little too random at times.
Another animation that has inspired me is part of an animated anthology called 'Genius Party' and called 'Happy Machine' (2007). Created by Japanese Anime studio 'Studio 4°C', it follows a young child as he ventures outside on his own. Along the way he happily encounters many strange creatures and situations before finally returning home. The narrative is minimal but it definitely exists causing the audience to form a relationship with the child. I prefer this to 'Destino', it holds my attention and produces an emotional response. I plan to make my animation character driven and have a classic happy ending.
Both animations are set in the desert and for two reasons, this is where I shall set my animation. Firstly, the desert is used heavily in much of Freddie and Dali's work. The second reason is down to practicality, I have a vast amount of work to do and designing backgrounds takes a long time. After designing objects and characters and then writing a story, I have to learn to model, rig, animate, texture and composite my piece. Drawing intricate backgrounds would take a long time and takes a lot of skill. I will create beautiful backgrounds but setting them in the desert makes things much simpler. I have provided an example of how my background may look (MK Everydays, 2015)
References: Character Limit reached, references in next post.
Week 3 - Dehydration Narrative: My story as it stands centers around a main character and his search for water in the vast open space of the desert. Unknown to the audience, he is dying from dehydration and is having vivid hallucinations. He runs into object and people who discretely point him in the direction of water, whether he finds it or not, I haven't decided. I did some research into the mental effects of dehydration. People hallucinate due to lack of water in their brain cells, the water is sent to the body as a last attempt to survive. Other organs also receive a depleted blood flow. I plan to symbolise many of these biological processes through surreal imagery. Surrealism after 1929 centered around Sigmund Freud's research into dreams. Artists such as Dali, Ernst, Tanguy and Magritte created hyper realistic images depicting many of the visual motifs Freud describes in his work - book titled 'Surrealism' by Fiona Bradley (1997) Tate London printing. Hallucinations can be very similar to dreams so I will also use this style and imagery in my animation.
References:
Bradley, F. 1997. Surrealism. London: Tate Gallery.
JOnas3MokaQ. 2011. Destino [Accessed: 23 September 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GFkN4deuZU
Happy Machine. 2007. [Film] Masaaki Yuasa. dir. Japan: Studio 4C
MK Everydays. 2015. Untitled. [Digital Image].
Grossbus Animation. This is the kind of humour I would like to use in my piece. Regarding storyline, the ending links with the start so there is a narrative, a very ridiculous one.
Week 4 - Second Thoughts on Narrative: I am having trouble thinking of a storyline and my basic premise is starting to feel a little far fetched. After watching an animation called "Opo: Present and Aware" by Grossbus Animation (2014) I definitely want to give my piece some humour and the narrative/non-narrative in "Opo" is something I would like to explore more. The narrative does link together, however many things happen without a reason. I will stay with the idea of a main character on a journey but the piece does not necessarily need to take place in a desert, a plain background like in Opo would work too.
I have also been watching alot a David O'Reilly's animations, such as 'Mirror' (2015), he is a pioneer in 3D animation. He was one of the first people to take 3D animation away from commercial use and use it to create personal art (Miranda, 2014). His style is very absurd and low poly, I will perhaps utilize the low poly aesthetic for my animation.
To get through my creative block regarding narrative, I have decided to spend a day on Vimeo watching as many animations as I can, writing down what I like about each one.
References:
GrossBus Animation. 2014. Opo: Present and Aware. [Online]. [Accessed 19th September, 2015]. Available from: https://vimeo.com/93091150
Miranda, C. 2014. More invasive than Facebook: 'Mountain' from creator of games in 'Her'. [Online]. [Accessed: 20th October 2015] Available from: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-animator-from-her-makes-real-video-game-20140612-column.html
O'Reilly, D. 2015. Mirror. [Online]. [Accessed 19th October, 2015]. Available from: https://vimeo.com/104138159
Week 4 - Tutorials and Freeform modelling: Regarding software and practicality. I created a Spitfire plane (Online Media Tutor, 2012) and a small interior (Hermes, 2014) by following tutorials. After this I spent a few hours working on Maya alone, with no tutorials. I created a 3D soundsystem and gave it 'cell shading' to achieve a cartoon style. Although this isn't probably not the style I will use for my final piece, it is still something I enjoy. I learned how to apply colour and shaders onto my models and also how to convert the images to PNG. I am starting to feel confident using Maya's modelling tools.
References:
Mike Hermes. 2014. Maya 2014 Tutorial: Interior Modelling. [Online]. [Accessed: 22nd October 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhRrMPoVwoA
Online Media Tutor. 2012. Intermediate Modelling: Spitfire. [Online]. [Accessed: 22nd October 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swz80xLQzO0&index=1&list=PLsPHRLf6UN4mK3oAmfRt39T7sIxWWkrOo
Week 5 - Style Progression: I watched countless animations on Vimeo and did find some more inspiration regarding style. One specific animation that spoke to me is called "Minotaure" by Alexandre Louvenaz (2012), it is essentially a music video of a Minotaur walking through what seems to be a very surreal desert (similar to my project). The objects moving and crashing in the background inspired me, I planned to have a long take (around 30 seconds) of my character walking similar to "Minotaure". I plan to have plants growing in the background, rocks smashing into each other and other characters passing by, it will be visually chaotic. Watching other animations has helped me greatly in my search for style.
References:
Alexandre Louvenaz. 2012. Minotaure. [Online]. [Accessed: 26th October, 2015]. Available from: https://vimeo.com/35798934
Week 6 - Meeting with Andy: Practically, the meeting with Andy Irving helped me hugely. I plan to center my story around a character dying from dehydration, I now know I can use water freely in my project. Also hearing about the movement mapping capabilities has given me more ideas regarding the actual animation of my main character, a key part of the piece. I am excited to start using the new facilities in the department.
Week 6 - Narrative Development: I knew my story would take place in the desert and that it would be loosely based around someone dehydrating, this is all I knew. However I wanted to make it about something more meaningful than dehydration, so I thought back to other ideas I've had for animations in the past. One idea I had was to depict the struggle of the Diggers in the 17th century. In the mid 17th century, a group of protestant radicals started to farm common land. They started on St. George's hill in Weybridge, Surrey 1649 and were punished my local landowners and aristocracy until the left (Bernstein, 2002). This happened at many more sites around Britian. They are associated with Agrarian Socialism and sometimes seen as the forerunners to modern anarchism. I decided to end my story at St. George's hill, make my character resemble a 'Digger' and have a member of the aristocracy persecute him. He would be persecuted for drinking water instead of farming common land, hinting to dehydration. I used a different technique when creating this idea. Instead of writing down my ideas, I drew them in a series of pictures. This gave me more time for contemplation and allowed me to achieve an idea of what my animation may look like.
To an uneducated viewer the story seems ridiculous, but to someone else it is an abstract and humorous depiction of a very serious and influential political movement. It has many layers of meaning.
To visualize the aristocratic character, I thought about capitalism and greed and landed on making him a pig. He would reside in a castle that floats on a cloud. However upon viewing the completed "storyboard", I realise I need one extra act at the start of the animation. This is to give more context and also adds some needed length to the piece.
References:
Bernstein, E. 2002. Cromwell and Communism. [Online]. [Accessed: 3rd November 2015]. Available from: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1895/cromwell/09-communism.htm
Week 7 - Style Development: The style for my animation is developing. During the past year, I have been progressively becoming more interested in comic books, not the usual superhero ones but more 'artistic' ones that place emphasis on the illustrations instead of storyline. When I saw the preview of a zine (a small independent comic) created by Edwin Sandoval, I bought it from the US for $5. It contains many strange and surreal cartoon style images. They are the exact style I had in mind for my animation, I have been inspired greatly as they exercise a very contemporary take on surrealism. The zine is a perfect example of surreal 'low brow' art and contrast very well with the surreal high art of the 1920s. I scanned the whole zine in and uploaded it to Pinterest.
References:
Sandoval, E. 2015. Spermicide No.1. USA: Gatosaurio.
Week 7 - Music Video and Potential Change in Narrative: As I continued to watch videos on Vimeo, I stumbled across a music video for a song by US based producer MUTA (Bordeau, 2015). The animation is set on an alien world that strongly resembles a desert and the characters are humanoid but not human. These are two characteristics that will feature in my animation, watching the animation gave me an urge to also create a music video. Music would be the key aspect of the video, it therefore allows me to have a relatively loose narrative and also means I wouldn't have to do any foley work (I was very excited to use the software we have available but it would inevitably add more stress and take time that could be spent on the animation). I feel a music video is a well rounded piece of art that I can happily present to a potential employer.
My friend Fred makes music so after a short conversation with him about style, he showed me a track he produced a while ago. The track is dreamy whilst maintaining a funky beat, relatively similar to the MUTA song in the video I watched. Unfortunately I cannot upload the audio onto the internet until he has tweaked it and given me permission. I am very excited to be making a music video, I feel my narrative will have to change slightly but I am already in the process of reworking it.
References:
Titouan Bordeau. 2015. PRAISE - MUTA. [Online]. [Accessed: 10th November 2015]. Available from: https://vimeo.com/118834363
Week 8 - New Simplified Narrative: I have simplified my narrative I felt the earlier one was too chaotic and the character had no obvious aim. It still follows a humanoid creature (the Digger), as they leave their house on an other worldly 'desert'. The desert will not be yellow and blue, I only call it a desert because it will be relatively flat.
He is walking a eventually stumbles upon a dying a abandoned oasis of sorts. There is another character here (the emperor) 'opressing' many small creatures or spirits. The Digger helps set the spirits free and they join forces to expel the Emperor, after he retreats/disappears the oasis will flourish again and the spirits will thrive. It is a revolution and the Digger is the catalyst. The narrative has been kept simple because it is not the main focus, the main focus will be the aesthetics.
On the journey the oasis, the Digger will see many beautiful object and scenes, rocks will collide, plants will grow as if on a time lapse, creatures will appear from all sorts of nooks and crannies. A long time will be spent watching the oasis transform and the spirits rising up. The song is less than four minutes long so a complicated narrative would be too challenging for an audience and for me.
Week 8 - Style: During this week I realised my aesthetic style. I have taken great inspiration from two artists, Julian Glander (2015) and Alice Tortue. The models they create are smooth and claylike, I like the aesthetic and practically they aren't too challenging for a beginner. They also use strong and repetitive colour pallets, something I will also do. These two artist create very striking images and colours, this is why I have taken huge inspiration from them. My style is moving away from the chaotic nature of the Edwin Sandoval Zine. My animation remains surreal in narrative, however the models will be much more minimal than I previously planned. I feel minimalism allows my piece to be simple yet very effective.
References:
Glander, J. 2015. P.L.A.M. group shot. [Digital Image]. [Online]. [Accessed: 19th November 2015]. Available from: http://awfulland.tumblr.com/
Tortue, A. 2015. Untitled. [Digital GIF]. [Online]. [Accessed: 19th November 2015]. Available from: http://alicetortue.tumblr.com/post/132434790865
Week 9 - Character and Narrative: This week I started designing my main character and also went for a meeting with John. I have linked images to my drawings. Unfortunately, I was still not happy with the outcome. I did like the way the character looked, however I felt that I was borrowing too heavily from Alice Tortue. I wanted to find a more original design. The meeting with John helped this problem.
During the meeting we talked about my narrative in depth. John rightly said that even though its a music video, my piece still needs a strong narrative, I was naive in thinking it did not. Things must make sense and happen for a reason. I have linked an image to the narrative as it stands, at the end my character summons a rain cloud and makes it rain, so after the meeting I decided to make my character's head resemble a weather tower (or something relating to weather).
Week 10 - Plan for Christmas Break and Style: After a meeting with John, I decided to completely re-work my character. I may center each it around the different states of water. I will perhaps make the tower resemble a water droplet falling into a pool of water (White, 2014). My character may also resemble water droplets or ice.
By January the 25th I plan to have all the designs complete; a full storyboard with timing video; concept art regarding colour and composition and a plan of what I must complete each week in semester two.
Regarding style, I was planning on having a very matte finish to my models, however I am now planning on adding texture to each one, similar to the work of Jonathan Djob Nkondo (2015). I will also create a few different colour options and get some critique from John and my friends. My style remains minimal with a taste of surrealism.
References:
Djob Nkondo, J. 2015. Untitled. [Online]. [Accessed 2nd December 2015]. Available from: absenteism.tumblr.com/
White, C. 2014. Untitled. [Online]. [Accessed 2nd December 2015]. Available from: http://www.liquiddropart.com/
Christmas Break - Adding a Cloud as a Vehicle: During Christmas I tweaked my story, I decided to make my character fly on a cloud. The first reason for doing this is because it settles the problem of how/why he can make it rain (the cloud can expand and rain) and second, it limits the need for a walk cycle. I realised that for a character to be walking through the desert a simple walk cycle with a moving background would not suffice, to get the shots I want I would need to map out every step and animate it so it's the character that moves. This would have taken too much time and with my limited knowledge, the final result would have been rough and unrealistic. I will still animate my character and make him walk at some point, however the main focus of the video will not be a character walking, but a character flying on a cloud. Animation now seems less daunting and I believe with a smaller workload I can make the animation much smoother and professional.
Christmas Break - Before the Christmas break I set myself two challenges, first to finish designing all my characters and objects and second, to have a completed storyboard. My characters are purposefully humanoid and alien, I have made the protagonist look friendly and just whilst making the nemesis look evil. Similar to my other sketches, both characters are smooth and curvaceous. My intention with the tunnel and tower is that they remind the audience of a palm tree and water droplet respectively. To illustrate my visual development, I have compiled each drawing into one image and highlighted the final sketch.
Christmas Break - Story Board: I have made my storyboard very cinematic, it features tracking shots, pans and may feature shots with a shallow depth of field. I viewed five similar length animations and counted the shots and the average was 40, my storyboard has 44 shots so I think it will intersect perfectly with my three minute song.
Models I have completed so far. The only one left is the spirits and perhaps an alternative plant.
Week 12 - Starting Modelling: Last week I started the modelling process. I watched many tutorials on modelling last semester so I felt relatively confident that I could achieve the models I had in mind. Models I need to create are: Plants x3, rocks x3, spirits x3, character, nemesis, tower, mountains/base plane, cloud, vehicle, glass dome, rope/wire and plant stump. During week 12 I completed: plants x3, cloud, rocks x3 and the tower. I used cylinders and spheres as the base shapes for each mesh, this made it easier to produce smooth curves. Alongside a series of extrusions and vertex morphing, each mesh was created by modelling separate elements and merging the vertices to create a whole. The cloud for example was made by first combining a cylinder and two semi-spheres, then adding a partial sphere on the top. A similar process was used to create the 'prickly pear' model and I have attached an image to illustrate this process of merging the vertices of two objects to create one.
I have also attached images of all the models created this week. As I'm still a beginner I estimate the time I spent modelling last week was around 30 hours, fortunately throughout the week my understanding of Maya increased rapidly and each model was completed more efficiently. I have hidden the wire frame on each model so the smoothness is highlighted. I feel I have achieved the minimal style I was aiming for.
This is the first model I completed, I made many mistakes throughout, thus the modelling time was longer than average. The process of merging vertices was simple for this model because the shapes were similar and only a handful of vertices needed to be merged.
Week 13 - Texture and Character Modelling: This week I finished modelling both characters, the process was the same for both. First I shaped the torso, I then attached cylinders, I then moved the vertexes so they were in line with my reference images. I watched a tutorial on modelling hands and followed along (Yukuii, 2015). The characters are the main focus of my animation and I knew they'd be the most challenging the model, I was therefore apprehensive about the final outcome, however I was pleasantly surprised with the results. I have attached images of the final models along with the hand drawn diagrams I used as reference images. Overall modelling time was 8 hours.
As stated earlier in my blog, I plan to add a shaded texture to my models. I knew I couldn't so it in Maya so I spent time this week researching whether this was possible in another programme and if so, how to do it. I learned about UVs, a UV in essentially the surface or skin of a model, to paint or texture a model you first need to unwrap its UV and lay it out flat. As with all software there are many alternative techniques to do this, however as a beginner I decided to use Maya's auto-unwrap function, using my cloud as a test (example of how the flattened UV looks like is linked below). After watching some tutorials, I exported the UV image into Photoshop for a texture test, I added grain and colour to the UV and exported it back into Maya. Unfortunately because the UV was so broken up, the texture was not consistent throughout the surface. I had to idea of painting the texture onto the model using 3D software instead of 2D, I downloaded a student version of AutoDesk Mudbox, a sculpting and painting programme. Using the same process as I did with Photoshop and a stock texture, I gained successful results.
References:
Yukuii. 2015. 3d Maya Modeling Arm and Hand Anime Style. [Online]. [Accessed: 7th February 2016]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Example for how UVs looks when they're unwrapped. This was the result of Auto UV for my cloud. You can see how each segment is awkwardly separated.
The texture completed in Photoshop. The dividing lines of each UV section are obvious.
Character reference image. To give it more of a cartoony feel, I made the final model thinner than this image.
Nemesis reference image. The design of the head changed slightly from my initial drawing a two weeks ago.
Week 14-15 - Rigging: I have completed the rig for my Nemesis character, I did this one first because it will not be moving very much and I will learn from any mistakes I've made along the way. My main character will have the majority of the animation on it so I want to rig to be perfect. To complete my rig I used a 3 hour long tutorial series made by CtrlAultDelTutorials (2015). After I finished I ran into an issue, my character's arm was not moving correctly and I could not find a solution online. I posted on a Maya subreddit and on CGsociety and found a response, I did not have enough edge loop around my elbow. I have attached images of the rigging and skinning process below, overall I estimate the rigging time to be around 8 hours, I assume it will take less time to rig my second character.
I have also attached a weekly plan for the rest of the year. This will help be stay on target and gives me a clear idea of what needs to be completed.
Week 14-15 - Colour: Besides rigging my characters, I also spent time creating potential colour pallets. I sketched some rough backgrounds and scanned them in, I then traced the images in Photoshop and coloured each object using my colour pallets. I have aimed for around 8 colours, with fewer colours many unrelated objects eg. the clouds and the Character's 'scarf' will be the same colour, I believe this consistency will be visually striking and give my animation memorable style.
Unfortunately some of the pallets I used are only saved as Photoshop swatches so I cannot upload these. I think of the three pallets uploaded here, number 2 is the best representation of the tones I'll be using. I realise how important colour is to visual art so I don't want to rush this process, I will exhaust my options to make an educated choice.
My music is very uplifting so I want the colours to strengthen the positive atmosphere, I am therefore going to use light tones and pastel colours for my animation. To get a greater sense of how the colours feel in 3D, I created some environments using Maya by simply importing a number of models into one scene and duplicating them multiple times. I attempted to make the colours pastel, however I need to do more research into rendering and shading.
Colour Pallets. The middle one is the best representation of the pastel colours I'll use.
Week 16 - Exporting from Maya: So far this week I have learned how to export an animation out of Maya. I did two simple animations of my characters rotating, after some research I found a forum post and learned the process of converting a maya animation into a .MOV file (digitalmcm, 2006). I changed some render settings in Maya so it would render each frame separately and did a batch render. For the character rotate, I rendered 170 frames and for the Nemesis rotate I rendered 85 frame. My computer had to work very hard to do this so I plan do all my rendering on a University computer. I them imported the image sequence into After Effects and rendered it as a .MOV file. To upload it to the internet as a .GIF I imported the .MOV into Photoshop and 'Saved for Web' on a continuous cycle (I already knew how to do these two steps so did not need to research the process). I colours I used for the animations are not the final ones, but I used pastel colours anyway as colour research.
References:
digitalmcm. 2006. Re: How do I Export an Animation?. 28th October 2006 09:21 PM. How do I Export an Animation?. [Online]. [Accessed 22 February 2016]. Available from: http://www.digitaltutors.com/forum/showthread.php?2484-How-do-I-export-an-animation.
Week 17 - Reference Videos and Minor Character Alterations: So far this week I have shot and edited some reference videos for my character animation. I shot references for; stepping off the cloud; raising and dropping arms when summoning cloud; walking; bending down to pick up spirit; Nemesis absorbing power and Nemesis looking afraid. I then edited the video and uploaded it to Youtube. I also added eyes and eyebrows to my character, unfortunately because the eyes protruded out of his head they cast a shadow. To work around this problem a gave him goggles (something I indented to put on his head anyway), I put a strap on the goggles but decided to delete it as I want the design to remain minimal. Again, I played around with colour pallets.
Week 17 - Animating and Completed Spirit Design: After rewriting my animation list, I started animating yesterday. I have started using university computers as my laptop is not powerful enough (this added power also means I have been able to save animations using Maya's 'playblast' function and upload them onto Youtube). My initial animations were robotic and movement was not smooth. I did some research and found a Youtube series outlining the 12 principles of animation as stated by famous animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston (AlanBeckerTutorials, 2015). It taught me about anticipation, squash and stretch and arcs etc. I used the animation graph editor to change the curves of my animations, I have attached a video illustrating the difference (the second video of each is the modified one). I have by no means completed these animations however some subtle changes on the graphs make a large difference and I wanted to document this.
I also finally have a final design for my spirits, I have spent weeks sketching and making small animations on Maya trying to find a design that was minimal but also beautiful. Initially I planned to make the spirits resemble jellyfish, however this was not minimal enough so i decided to make them spherical. Eventually after many attempts I had an idea to combine my two ideas, I applied a 'wave deformer' onto a sphere, making it move like a jellyfish. The final outcome moves very elegantly and remains minimal. I have attached a video documenting my design process in Maya and an image regarding the sketchbook (both are presented chronologically).
References: AlanBeckerTutorials, 2015. 12 Principles of Animation. [Online]. [Accessed: 2 February, 2016]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-bOh8btec4CXd2ya1NmSKpi92U_l6ZJd
A video chronologically documenting the creative process for the spirit. The final animation is the one I'll use.
A video illustrating how I used curves to make my animation smoother. The second video of each is the edited one (the final one).
Weeks 18-20 Animation Nearly Complete.
During these two week I finished all seven of my character animations, however they do need some final tweaking the smooth-en them out.
After finishing this I starting my other animation. Firstly I wanted to animate the spirit being absorbed by the bubble, first I tried using a simple lattice deformer and animating each individual vertex however this didn't look realistic and looked amateur. After some research I found I could use a simulation plug in called ncloth (The CGBros, 2011) after some personal tweaking I achieved the look I was going for.
My next task was to animate my plants growing back, however before I could do this I had to address a previous concern. I didn't like the complex aesthetic of my larger cactus and also thought the prickly pear wasn't consistent with the rest of my animation. I therefore designed two new plants, one resembles a succulent and one a tree (the type found in Joshua Tree national park). To make them grow I used 'blend shapes' (mayatoolbelt, 2015), I set the original plant as the target and morphed the vertex's so it then appeared ugly and stumpy then by animating the blend shape I can make the plant 'grow'. I purposefully made the smaller plants stumpy to contrast the elegance of the larger ones.
Next I made my spirit glow, I used mental ray shaders (Michael Wolff, 2012) so the glow also refracted onto other objects in my scene, this part was relatively simple.
Lastly I animated my bubble 'melting' by using another object as a mask (ctbram0627, 2012), this process was simple and I like the smooth result it produces.
References:
ctbram0627. 2012. tip animate boolean diffence. [Online]. [Accessed: March 6th 2016]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mas3zm5U214&list=PL_zX2gQxEeWwjk2gkwa7Ul-D7IkH1S70F&index=26
Maya Toolbelt. 2015. The Maya Toolbelt - Blend Shape - Part 1. [Online]. [Accessed: March 7th 2016]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh4YvlAEY0Q&index=28&list=PL_zX2gQxEeWwjk2gkwa7Ul-D7IkH1S70F
Michael Wolff. 2012. MentalRaySelfIllumination. [Online]. [Accessed: March 12th 2016]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOoZAEGSaJU&index=29&list=PL_zX2gQxEeWwjk2gkwa7Ul-D7IkH1S70F
The CGBros. 2011. Maya to 3ds Max (Soft Body Dynamics Tutorial). [Online]. [Accessed: 3rd March 2016]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjvDrW-CYrM&index=24&list=PL_zX2gQxEeWwjk2gkwa7Ul-D7IkH1S70F
Week 21 - Colour finalized and Test Renders: This week I have finalised my colours, I have maintained pastel shades throughout and as planned the desert floor is purple. Due to my character's alien appearance I feel the environment should feel "other worldly". I have also been testing lighting and trying to achieve a sharp render, my previous renders have been blurry and I have struggled to find a solution. Fortunately after a post on Reddit, I found a solution by changing the filter type. Regarding lighting, I am using Mental Ray's physical sun and sky feature. Although it isn't a very professional lighting technique, I am happy with the results and don't have time to learn lighting techniques. After achieving a sharp render, I decided not to use the textures that I planned to use simply because I was so impressed with the final image. I feel the textures would detract from my smooth claylike modelling technique and therefore harm the consistent aesthetic of my animation. My next job is to set up each individual shot in Maya by importing individual models and animations into a single scene.
Week 22-24 - Setting up shots: During the previous two weeks I have been following my storyboard and placing certain assets in appropriate positions within a larger setting. I then imported the character animations I had done previously and set up camera angles and camera animations. For the speed of the camera and character movement I kept the BPM of the soundtrack in mind so they complemented each one another. For the lighting I used a simple 'physical sun and sky' simulation and made sure to keep the settings consistent. I then rendered each shot as individual frames and imported them into After Effects as image sequences.
From After Effects I was able to import files straight into Premier Pro where I completed my timeline edit. I made sure to subtly cut my shots in time with the music. Editing was simpler than expected because I had already worked out the length of each shot. Once they were placed chronologically on the timeline my only two tasks were to shorten everything by 40 seconds and to cut in time with the music. The rough cut was very similar to the final cut.
An Example of a 'King Deluxe' music video. 'PRAISE' by MUTA (Referenced earlier in the blog) is also a 'King Deluxe' release.
Week 25 - Special Effects, Title and Hand In: After finalising my edit I presented it to John and Stephen who gave me some advice regarding final touches. Stephen said he was confused about the symbolic nature of the 'yellow spheres', they appear frequently and confuse the viewer. The counter this I made the spheres under the tower purple using masks and colour change in After Effects. John said I should emphasize the flow of energy through the blue tubing, to do this I used masks and an animated stroke following the path of the tubes. For a subtle effect I only did this on one close up shot. During this time I also added a lens flare to the shot of the spirits attacking the Nemesis.
I then proceeded to add sound effects to my animation, after downloading them from the Adobe website I added rain, an energy pulse to the spirits, a 'swoosh' for the could movement and clicking when the cloud joystick folds down. However after some peer feedback and some individual analysis I decided the sound effects took my animation down a different path than the one I desired.
I have taken great inspiration from a record label called 'King Deluxe' who commission animators to create music videos for their electronic songs. These music videos have very strong narratives and a lack of sound effects (see 'Slow Dance'). My animation's aesthetics and acoustics complement each other greatly and I feel the use sound effects detract from that.
Finally I decided to call my animation 'The Gardener' so the spectator knows the significance of the plants and the character. I then created the title shot in illustrator using some of the iconic shapes and colours found within the animation.
Martinus Klemet. 2014. Slow Dance. [Online]. [Accessed 23 May 2016]. Available From: https://vimeo.com/82954900
Summary: Overall I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the final piece. What has shocked me most is the similarity from the initial idea and the final outcome. From the start I planned to have a humanoid character exploring a purple desert. Considering the large amount of ideas I've had throughout the process the fact that the initial one has manifested is shocking. I really like the smooth minimal look I have achieved, I found the greatest pleasure in modelling process and least pleasure in the animation I believe these passions influence the final piece. My lack of knowledge regarding rigging and animating result in simple movement. Fortunately however I do not believe this limited the emotion of my character, the audience still connects because (I believe) the eyebrows are so expressive.
Overall I had immensely enjoyed the creative process from start to finish, I have gained knowledge regarding narrative, 3D modelling, rigging, animating, compositing, lighting, camera and texturing (although I decided not to use texture in the final piece). This has given experience in various sectors within 3D art, through this I have discovered my passion in modelling and texturing and will continue to pursue it.