There are different types of facial rig controls. The rig I have been using for the stylised walk has a much easier face controls as I they are all set up (left & right controllers) but others have to be moved manually on the face which is harder and more time consuming.
When importing audio into Maya it needs to be in the format of either .wav or .mp3. I can use the programme Adobe Audition CC to convert audio clips into the right format if need be. The rate of the audio should be 32 000 hz and 16 bt.
Once imported to Maya the audio will show in the time line but needs to be in ‘real time’ in order to hear it correctly. In preferences I can make it that I can ‘repeat on hold’ which is useful when working on phonemes.
First I need to lock the face controls down before I make the first movement of the mouth. When I am using a rig I can add to the Studio Library so that different mouth shapes can be used over again and I don’t have to keep making the same poses over again. This would be very useful when animation a long sequence like a film. Means the characters mouth movement always stays the same.
Remember to include the jaw and tongue, not just the mouth movements.
Here is an example of a phoneme mouth chart.
I have added in two different examples of phoneme reference. One is 2D and the other is 3D. You can see the difference in how helpful they can be. I have decided to film myself simultaneously to the character so that I can make sure it visually is coherent.
1st final outcome
I was really impressed with my outcome. I didn’t realise just how difficult it was to lip sync for animators. Without the right facial controls on a rig it can be extremely more complicated depending on the rigs facial movement. I am lucky that this rig had those controls e.g. ooh, ee, tt etc… For my first go, I think this was a good rig to use to ease me into the process. For my performance animation I would like to try without the help of the facial controls so that I learn how to do it myself.
When searching for my topic I should be careful not to be general otherwise there will be too much information. Also, searching to specific means there won’t be enough information.
What are my research interests?
Find an idea or question
Outline the fields of study
What do you already know?
What is it that I want to know about this?
My Mind Map:
Looking at what I have been up to in the last few years and what my interests are I have decided to make my topic about creating atmosphere and ambience virtually.
How to create ambience and atmosphere that mimics the energy of events in virtual & augmented reality.
Virtual spaces in advertising
crowds
set design
lights
space
Atmosphere
feelings
togther as one
a part of something
energy
moevement: crowds/dancing
VFX
Dancing rigs
Set Design
Methodology
Thinking about process
Approaches to task
Theory
The glasses you see the world through
e.g:
Marxist
Feminist
Post colonial
Semiotic
Prepare 4 or 5 questions you need to answer before you start.
Need to go higher in the jump and more forward in the air
Bend arms
Legs need to be stretched out further
End pose is too early
Arch back
I went back and made the edits I had to for the block poses.
Updated Hulk:
I went back to my animation and made the correct changes. I think it looks a lot better already which is great! Even though it doesn’t follow the reference exactly I think now the character definitely has more appeal in his movement. I now need to spline his spine and render the animation.
Spline Tips
Start with hips then feet
Have a floor
Smooth spine then arms
Head should be done last
Here the translate x of the hulk is not in a smooth arc which is what will give the character good slow in and out of his jump. I need to move the point over and smooth out the spline.
Test Render
I tested out what it would look like once rendered but the water doesn’t seem to be coming up/registering. I looked up online and this has happened to other people so need to speak to Luke about why this is occurring.
Luke had explained that I would need to find another way of creating a water effect.
Staging experimentation
I really wanted the rendered animation to look like a peaceful and care free environment just like how the hulk is gracefully jumping. I hadn’t really done much staging on my own but I was determined to find a really lovely sunset. I tested with different shapes and images but they always seemed to drown out the hulk. I settled on a subtle/dark sunset so that the green of the hulk popped and wasn’t lost.
Final Hulk Animation Rendered
This is my final animation for the body mechanics. I added in spine and head overlapping to the animation so it was more splined. I also edited in the graph editor that the jump was more dramatic and more height. I feel most proud of this animation just because I think i liked the concept the most. I like how when it was rendered that there is a reflection on the water of the sun. If I could change anything it would be that I would want to give the wooden pool and plank textures also to make the water move like waves.
The weakness’s of a character shouldn’t be obvious. If you try to spell out the weaknesses then the audience could feel like the story becomes a lecture. This is not enjoyable for the audience.
Andrew Staton – Ted talk on storytelling
Story telling gives affirmation / meaning to our lives.
Make me care!
2+2 not 4. Don’t give the answer, but give the solution for the audience to work out themselves.
Can you invoke wonder?
Use what you know.
Task: Break down character & story development. Analyse how the main characters evolve. Analyse who the characters drive the story. Point similarities between you chosen films & why they are following a similar structure.
Film 1: Forest Gump
Story break down:
Forest Gump has leg problems – He is bullied, Jenny is his only friend.
Graduates and joins army, becomes ping pong champion, shrimp boat – Lives an amazing life.
Admits he loves Jenny – She struggles with drug abuse and bad boyfriends, cant reciprocate.
He feels rejected and going running.
Receives letter and goes running to Jenny.
Finds out the she has a kid called Forest (his kid) and Jenny is dying.
Summary: He loves Jenny and never gave up on her no matter what happened in his life. He waited for her till she was ready to love herself because of her abusive upbringing she didn’t know how.
Break down of Forest’s character:
He was born with a disability or not being able to walk properly and simple minded. People would treat him differently.
His mum said to not let anyone treat him differently. He listened and didn’t let anyone stop him.
He loves Jenny but she continued to tell Forest that he didn’t.
Forest experiences all areas of life in spite of his disabilities.
Forest’s character didn’t actually change too much. He is how he is. He loved Jenny at the beginning till the end. The had a wonderful journey through life which prepared him for fatherhood.
Who drives the story?
Everyone except Forest. He was taught to do what people say (literally) and it always led him to his next adventure. It was as though everything was by chance but he went through it anyways. However Jenny was like the centre gravitational pull. He always went back to her, even unintentionally.
Film 2: White Chicks
Story break down:
Two NYPD agents keep messing up. They want the ultimate glory of being the good guys busting the bad guys. Feeding a child like fantasy of theirs which will end up making them happy.
They take their own fate within their hands and impersonate to white girls who have a ‘bimbo/entitled’ attitude in order to solve a crime.
They meet the Wilson sister’s friends and enemies.
End up making friends with them and learning what its like to be a woman and in turn the agents learn what its like.
Also solving the case.
Break down of Marcus’s character:
Marcus has issues with his girlfriend. He seems to not pay her attention and she is always annoyed. He doesn’t handle the situation he just avoids it. Thinking being a good cop means it will resolve.
He makes friends with the Wilson sister’s friends and learns that woman just want to be acknowledged and notice the efforts gone into the small things.
He makes up with his girlfriend and knows how to resolve the issue.
Who drives the story?
The NYPD cops ego and their ideas of how to solve the crime.
The friends forcing them into situations.
The enemy sisters who challenge them.
Film 3: The Lion King
Story break down:
Mufasa rules the kingdom which will be taken over by his son Simba.
Scar is Mufasa’s uncle and wants the power and land for himself.
Scar makes a plan which kills Mufasa and Simba blames himself.
Simba runs away to escape the guilt.
He is found by his childhood friend to return and save pride rock from scar killing it.
Simba returns, fights and wins
Scar is then killed and peace is restored.
Break down of Simba character:
He is young and arrogant of how he will be as a king.
Makes mistakes and gets in trouble of what he thinks makes a good king.
He blames himself for Mufasa’s death because he was manipulated as a cub.
He learns to forget when he meets Pumba and Timone but he can’t run away from who he is.
He returns and fights to follow in his fathers footsteps.
Who drives the story?
Scar is the villain who is manipulating the situations to get what he wants till Simba is older and stronger.
How it moves when carrying out a particular action.
How do we use body mechanics in animation?
To lift
To jump
What sort of things should we be looking for when animating body mechanics?
How all parts of the body respond when carrying out an action e.g. Lifting is in the legs but how your hands and facial expressions alter in correlation to the lifting.
Balance – The weight of a person changes throughout the characters movement. Weight is shifted through the body to keep its balance.
Principles of Body Mechanics:
Anticipation – Arms before the hulk leaps off .
Overlap – Spine & arms to keep balance
Squash & Stretch – When landing
Timing & Weight – 24 frames per jump to mimic gravity.
Staging – Water, bridge and post
Slow in & out – in the jump
Exaggeration – the landing/arm movement to keep balance
Appeal –
Secondary Action – The arms are moving after he lands to keep balance
Good references:
Parkour/free running
Takeshi Castle – obstacles
Total Wipeout
Ninja Worrier – Makoto
Really loved the idea of parkour as my body mechanics reference. I watched this whole video and thought it was pretty impressive. I really don’t like when parkour is super dangerous so liked the water element just in case. Also this group of people seem like a real nice group of friends and the energy is great!
I decided to edit in Adobe After Effects the part of the clip I wanted to animate as there are so many jumps through out the video.
My Video Reference:
So to get started I needed to break down all the main block poses which I did on Adobe Illustrator.
Block poses from the jump reference:
Block Poses from the dive reference:
For my rig I chose to use The Incredible Hulk. This wasn’t the most complex of rigs but I liked that the idea of making a bulky character also a balances and skilled parkour jumper. The concept is amusing and playful.
Hulk’s Blocking Poses:
From screenshooting the block poses it was much easier for me to track the reference to get the right block poses and timing.
First Playblast:
I really enjoyed making this animation. I think it was really exciting making him jump like the video. The reference was so much easier than the stylised walk reference. I think this made a huge difference in how easier and how much more enjoyable it can be. The energy in the video definitely helped with the excitement of the hulk jumping like he is.
We were all fortunate enough to have a workshop with a CG Generalist at Union in VFX – Dom Maidlow. Dom introduced himself and what eh does in the industry to give us an idea of what the programme 3D Equaliser can do and what it is used for.
What does a runner do? :
Try everything
Learn from professionals
Help make your showreel
Be a YES man
Roles to ascend in career :
Runner
Junior match move
Mid match move
Senior match move
Modeling programes:
Mud Box
Sculpting
ZBrush
Maya
FXPHD
Unreel
3D Equaliser
smart-page.net/smartnormal/
Texturing :
Substance Painter
Showreel Portfolio :
Make it punchy
Show layers of animation
Show Process
1.5 mins max
Making Connections :
CGmeetup.net
In this first lession with Dom, we were asked to track these scene from the Camden Lock. This was an introduction to 3d Equaliser as we were told it was very useful to have had some practice on this programme before entering the industry. I was really excited to get started because I have always been fascinated in augmented reality (AR). Unfortunately due to difficulties with my laptop I wasn’t able to get the programme going. This was really stressful because it was so much harder to learn when you cant follow and repeat what Dom was saying. Furthermore, the session was recorded but without any sound! This made catching up very difficult and took a really long time.
So to start off I tracked points on the graffiti wall facing the camera. This was easy to track as once you heightened the contrast of the image the black and green were very strong patterns to track. I quite enjoyed finding patterns and tracking them as I was always looking for the strong parts of the video.
As you can see in this screenshot, I have increased the saturation of the film so that it is easier to find patterns and track points. This was important of spaces like on the pathway. There wasn’t as many unique patterns like the graffiti. It also helped when I changed the sizing of the red box around the point so that it had a larger surface area to track, meaning the point deviation is more likely to be on point.
Once I had finished tracking all of the red area, I had to track points on to the yellow pink and blue circled areas. This was to show the 4 different depths of field so that the programme could calculate this space. As you can see the pink are is very dark and the blue area is over exposed. This means I will have to alter the video in the attribute editor to create some clearer patterns in these areas. Too much or too little light in natural spaces are bound to occur to this tool is essential.
In the top part of the video where the building are were by far the hardest places to track as the jumped off and on screen. This was extremely frustrating as I kept making the mistake of starting a new point instead of just breaking up one singular point. I couldn’t seem to figure it out but later on I was informed by Dom that I had to make sure I moved along the timeline so that the programme new I wanted to keep the same point.
There was also a lady that walked past which was difficult to break the points and make sure that she didn’t walk past them as this would confuse the programme when tracking.
Having tracked all these different areas of the Lock, you can then calculate the different points and see the virtual 3D space of the Camden Lock area. I found this very cool! I am so impressed with the way it can work out where these points are in a literal world.
Here you can see where the camera would be in this virtual space and the red line acts as its pathway. This is useful to show the depth and distance the camera is moving as well as all those points I have tracked. As you can see, the right hand side green points are a lot closer to the camera than the right side points which is the same as the original video. This shows me that the tracking has worked which is a success!
As you can see above, there are a lot of screen and red dots which come off the picture. This means I did not end the the points and they are running off. I didn’t realise that they all had to be ended to I need to go back and correct this.
Over all, I found the lesson very interesting. Due to the technical difficulties, it was very hard to catch up. So the next session I have with Dom will be so much easier and I will learn a lot faster. I am excited to see what else we will be doing as I think this is a brilliant new programme to learn and add to my skills.
There is a lack of story telling in Hollywood. This is due to not wanting to take risks due to money.
Story Development / Story structure
Joseph Campbell invented The Hero’s Journey. This is where he made similarities between the Native American stories and Christianity stories (compared mythology). It was Josephs belief the were similar characteristics in all stories.
This included:
Religion
Race
Time
Ancestry
Stories as a Circle
Rhythm of Dualities
Life & Death
Consciousness & Unconsciousness
Order & Chaos
A story marches to a beat.
You – establish a protagonist
Need – something ain’t right
Go – cross the threshold
Search – the road of trials
Find – meet goddess
Take – meet your maker
Return – bring it home
Change – master of both worlds
“Its not a journey if you don’t come back.”
I’d agree to disagree in with this quote. I wouldn’t say its come back but more or overcoming in your stride. You never really go back anywhere but in terms of confronting the initial problem then yes I agree.
From what i’ve understood according to Joseph, The protagonist has a problem which needs to resolve or change in order to move on his journey, but in order to continue they need to go on a journey to overcome/learn/grow to know how to over come the initial problem.
Stories as a Curve
Exposition: intro of settings, characters & problems.
Rising Action: characters struggling with problems.
Climax: tensest moment of crisis.
Falling Action: movement towards an ending.
Resolution: Final outcome.
I find this theory to be too simple, unimaginative, obvious and untrue. Although this will the case for more some stories, the momentum of films differ in tempo and order or it is repeated over and over.
Character Types
Protagonist – main character
Antagonist – villian
Dynamic – experience
Static – doesn’t learn anything new
Round – well developed
Flat – one dimensional
The idea that a character is one or the other like the dualities of Joesph’s theory.
Villain Types
Bully
The dragon (don’t see)
The vengeful
Fallen hero
Terrorist (ideal or belief)
Beast
The unhinged
The machine
The equal
The mastermind
Types of Heros
Hero – Protagonist, looking at the journey through their eyes.
Mentor – Motivational, gives insight, and trains the hero.
Threshold Guardian – Tests the hero.
Herald – Announces change.
Shapeshifter – Good & bad, misleading to the hero.
Trickster – Shows how out of hand the situation has gotten.
Allies (side kick) – Fill in the gaps of the hero’s character, a support system.
Not all films have enough characters to fulfil all the traits so there is a double duty for some characters to be both.
The ending can make or break a film.
The aim is to make more people want to see the film or make bigger audiences.
What is an unsatisfying film ending?
Grease. Loved the film, absolute classic but there was no need to fly the car into the sky at the end. it just made the whole thing seem unrealistic and didn’t add any value. Still a great film though.
Harry Potter. I am obsessed with all the films but didn’t like how he just snapped the wand. He could have used the power for good e.g. fix up Hogwarts or use for good. Just seemed like a but egotistical that he was the only one to snap it in a second.
Timelines
Mean Girls Dissected
Hero – Cady Heron
Need – Wants to fit in and make friends
Go – First day at high school
Search – For friends
Find – Mean girl group
Take – usurped Regina George as the head of the Mean Girls.
Return – Lost all real friends and was alone again
Change – Now knows who her real friends.
Types of Hero’s in Mean Girls
Hero – Cady Heron
Mentor – Janice Ian
Threshold Guardian – Ms. Norbury
Herald – Gretchen Wiener
Shapeshifter – Aaron Samuels
Trickster – Damien
Allies (side kick) – Janice Ian / Damien
Cady Timeline
Comes to school and doesn’t have any firends
Meets Janice and Damien who accept her as she is
The plastics want to be friends with her because she is pretty
She realises they arent here real friends so she plays a double agent
She ends up getting wrapped up in their world and forgets her real friends
She becomes plastic
She realises its not worth real friendship and makes amends
She returns to being exactly who she was in the beginning but with the knowledge of who is actually her real friend.
Harmony is restored. New plastics arrive but at least she wont be sucked into this.
A story doesn’t always have to be in film. There is story telling in advertising which is the area of design which I want to get into. I want to be able to dissect the adverts just like i did for the films. This will help me achieve the outcome in which the story is to achieve. When I can spot the pattern which they have in common, I will easily be able to apply it to my own work.
