Final Industry Exercises Movie

As my deadline is tomorrow, this may be the last post that I put up here.  I have now put together an Industry Exercises movie to demonstrate my contribution to the third year film, Snatched.  Today, I also received the fully rendered and textured shot, ready for the final cut of the film; so I am glad to say that it will be included in this movie and in the latest update of my showreel.

This Industry Exercises movie had to be at least 30 seconds long, so to pad it out, I decided to include a few playblasts which showed the stages from initial blockout, right through to the smoothening out of the poses and the application of the camera movements and gravity.  The playblasts that illustrated each stage of the piece are then followed by the final rendered shot.

This means that the viewer will be able to see how I constructed the shot and how I experimented with the weight of the characters as they moved through the air; along with how I interpreted the animatic that the third years gave me to work with.

Another thing that we were told to place on the DVD for our Industry Exercises was this sequence which consisted of the EBU HD Colour Bars, followed by a countdown clock and then 10 seconds of blank screen, until the short movie started; as demonstrated below.

This is because this piece had to comply to broadcast standards as much as possible.  At first I was baffled by this because I could not work out the timing for everything at first.  I was also unsure what I had to put next to the clock, as I knew I had to list some basic information about the programme.  However, after having a few look at the Ravensbourne Technical Standards and asking my tutors, I soon worked it out.

Next to the countdown clock, I had to list the Programme Name, the Programme Producer (me!), whether the video is HD or SD, whether the sound is stereo or mono, the dimensions of the screen and the duration.  I quite enjoyed this practice, as I have always been fascinated by how programmes are set up in preparation for broadcast, as well as how a television channel is organised.

Here is my final movie for the Industry Exercises unit, complete with the test card and clock;

If you would prefer not to sit through 30 seconds of colour bars and a monotonous tone, here is a link the Industry Exercises movie itself on Youtube.

Falling with style :)

Yesterday, I went into uni to meet with the third years and work on my shot, while receiving their feedback.  I found that I prefer working on the sequence with them as opposed to working on it on my own, at home.  They told me that I did a good job but there were a few things that needed improvement.  First of all, the spinning at the beginning needed to be slowed down and also at the first time he attempts to grab the chicken, I needed to exaggerate the lean and grab.

I slowed down the first spin simply by making the starting point of the spin closer to the end point, resulting in a shorter degree of turn.  I exaggerated the grab by key framing his hips so they move up with his arm movements and also bending the arm more at the points when he grabs, creating more follow through.  Here was the first out come.

After reviewing this piece of animation, the third years had decided on more changes to be made.  They decided that the first grab wasn't really working, as there it is far too stiff and weighty to happen in mid air.  Therefore they decided to cut it out and have it so the marmot climbs up his arm as soon as they swing around.  I did this simply by deleting the keyframes between when he begins grabbing and until the marmot changes facial expression and then moving the remaining keyframes back.

The second part that they wanted changed was the animation in between when the marmot bounces on the mongol's head and catches the chicken.  They wanted the movement to be much slower than it was.  I did this by moving the keyframes of both the marmot and the mongol apart.  This was very difficult as there were keyframes for the locators, and arm controls at different positions meaning I had to spend a lot of time deleting frames and moving frames into position to make it even again.

They also asked me to make the mongol's second grab for the chicken more subtle, so that the movement was concentrated in the hands rather than the arms.  Finally they asked me to make the movement of the chicken leg more wobbly, as the way I had it before was quite static.  I now had to shorten the camera movement so that it moves faster, but it still stops at the point when it is supposed to stop, which is when the two characters discover they were falling.

Here is how the falling sequence looks now; shorter and quicker than before.

The third years believe that this sequence looks much better, although one member of the team is not keen on the spinning movement as the marmot catches the chicken.  The movement in this looks more natural for characters that are falling.  I have sent this file to the third years to be textured and rendered; I am hoping to receive the fully rendered animation so I can include it in my showreel.

Animation almost complete

I have got all the poses finished in the animation and I have been tweaking with the timing.  I have also key framed the "gravity curve" that I created so that the characters fall with the camera; and also the moment when they freeze in mid air, discovering that they are actually falling.  As for the chicken bone falling, I simply parented that to the camera, as that was more difficult to animate falling and still keep in line with the two characters.

I simply used linear tangents in the Graph Editor for both the camera and the falling of the characters as this meant that the falling movement would be more even and would go faster.

I have sent this playblast to the third years to see if they like it or if any changes need to be made.

If they are satisfied with this, I will ask them to render it for me so I can include it in my showreel.

Grabbing and jumping added

Today, I have expanded the animation further, so it now includes the Mongolian man's attempts to grab the chicken bone in mid air and also the Marmot climbing over the Mongol and then jumping to catch the chicken.  Here is how it looks so far, with the majority of the curves flattened out.

Free falling animation so far

Over yesterday and today, I began the falling sequence for the Marmot and Mongol characters, and I used the group's animatic as reference from 0:46 to 0:51.  The Maya scene that I was given contained the cliff scene, the two character rigs, the chicken leg model and the camera that would be used to render the shot.  This camera also had the camera movements.

Before beginning the animation, I made several amendments; first of all, I moved the characters into the starting position of the camera, so I could see how the animation would look in the shot.  The camera was already animated, but I had made the decision that I was going to animate all the poses first and then apply the falling later.  In order to create all these poses and see how it looked through the camera, I created a duplicate camera, but then I deleted all the movement from this new camera.  This meant that I could animate each key pose, but the camera would remain in position.

Another thing I did was create a curve that I named the Gravity curve and I then parented both the character rigs to this curve.  This curve would be used to actually animate the falling, as well as the moments when the two characters rotate in the air.  I could have done this manually, but this would be quite laborious.

Here is how the animation looks so far.

Towards the end of this bit of animation, the Mongol tries grabbing the chicken leg (which has yet to be animated falling), before the Marmot climbs on top of him and fetches it.   In this piece of animation, I made many alterations to the timing between when his legs swing around, and when his head turns to notice the falling piece of chicken.  It still needs a bit more work and I think the pose where he first notices the chicken needs to be held for longer.

I also need to put more effort into the weight of the Marmot trying to hold onto the Mongol's hand, as well as his facial expressions.

Back on board

I was chatting to David last night and he told me that they definitely need my help in getting their film complete so I am glad to say that I am now back working for the third years on the Snatched project.  I have also been give a shot to animate, which consists of the Marmot and Mongol fighting over the food while falling down a cliff.  I haven't animated a falling shot before but it should be fun to do.

The project so far...

I am in an interesting position at the moment, the third years that I produced animation for have found that they are full up with animators and therefore do not need my assistance at present.  I have figured that this is not down to a lack of ability or a lack of professionalism on my part, as David has thanked me for my professional approach to the project.  David has also mentioned that they may still need me towards the end of the project, even if they have no work for me at the moment.

After speaking with Jared, I have decided that the best thing to do so far is to continue with the running sequence that I have been working on, as I will need this for the assessment.  When I am putting together my movie which shows what I did for the Industry Exercise project, I will mention that this sequence did not make the final cut.

Run cycle

Since my last post, I have made improvements to the run cycle; I added movement to the arms and a bit of facial expression.  However, I have made two versions of my run cycle, because when I handed in my first, the director David asked me to make the run cycle quicker and also to remove the shaking fist and the beginning, where he gets up.  Although he likes it, they just needed a run cycle by this point.  Here is the first run cycle so you can see what I did.

After David asked me to make it more simple, so it is just a basic run cycle, I deleted a few key frames and then moved some of the key frames on the graph that make up the running movement, closer together.  I completely redid the arm movement from scratch and now the mongol begins the run cycle closer to the camera and eventually runs out of shot.

Here is my second attempt at the run cycle, that I have sent to both David and Tara.

Snatched!

Welcome to my new blog, which I will be using to document my progress on my third Industry Exercises unit.  For this unit, I have three projects to fulfil; the first being documenting my work in this blog. The second is to produce a showreel of the best work I have made over the past two years, both university work and personal, and I will need to present this on an interactive menu-driven DVD.  

The third project, that I will speak about in more detail in a moment is to produce and/or contribute to an animated film. I have three options for this project; I can work for as a junior on one of the third year's final films, I can work on this year's Rave Live and apply my animation skills towards the channel idents, or I can find an external client and negotiate a brief on the work that they will want me to produce for them.

For this project, I have chosen to work as an animator on a third year students' BA short film.  A few weeks ago, I managed to get in touch with some of the animators, that were working on a film called Snatched, a film about a Marmot that snatches a Mongolian man's food, resulting in a massive chase.  They agreed to let me do some animating for them (a big thanks to them!)

The first thing that I they have given me to do for this project is a test animation.  This will be an animation of one of the shots in the film that involves the Mongol running towards the camera, just after the marmot snatches the food and runs off.  I have been given all of the scenes and character rigs that are required, as well as a link to the animatic that I will use to reference the timing and poses.

I have already put in most of the run cycle, as well as the Mongol's getting up to chase the marmot.  Here is the unrendered playblast of the animation sequence so far.

I have got the main poses of the run cycle in but, as you can see, it is nowhere near done yet.  I also need to add facial expressions and animate his hand movement.  At the moment, I am considering animating him running with shaking fists, to express his fury at this little beast stealing his food.  I am also trying to decide if I should convey more anticipation in his first action, where he gets up off the ground and moves straight into a run as this currently looks a bit unnatural.

Once I have made these improvements, I will work at adding some more character to the run itself.  He is clearly infuriated, so I think his run needs to be a bit more clumsy and he needs to throw his weight around a bit more.  I also need to try acting it out to see how I can convey anger in a run cycle most accurately.

As for the showreel, I have already made a showreel, which is available on the homepage of my web site, but I want to change some of the footage around and add some new animation.  I will also document the full production of the showreel DVD through this blog.