Animated Piece

Well here's the link to the final animated piece:

https://vimeo.com/42160537

Didn't turn out as well as i'd hoped, as a correlation of all my hard work, but through this project I have learned enough to make it greatly worth it, and I hope to produce a high standard of work in the future.

I plan to look into acting to inform my knowledge of natural movements, as that seemed to be missing from my study, and was apparent in my animation.

Exporting Time

Well it's come to that time of the year :) Expect a post involving the final rendered animation some time next week, this blog's getting exported for the Honours Project module hand in :)

Thanks so much to all my followers, it's been great to see people's interest in my work, and I hope you are not disappointed by the final results!

To those reading this as part of my submission, welcome, and enjoy.

Rendering

Rendering is going well :) Slow but steady!

Rendering

It's rendering time folks!
How exciting.
Compositions to follow, how even more exciting :)
Hoping i can find a great soundtrack online.

Lighting and Rendering Tests

As I know next to nothing about lighting, and slightly further from nothing about rendering, I can only determine what will work best for my animation by simple trial and error. For starts, I've set up a weak ambient light complimented by a stronger spot light to create a few shadows around William and I'm deciding which software I will choose to render with.

Maya Hardware

Maya Software

Maya Vector

Mental Ray

Personally I am very tempted to make the whole thing in Maya Vector, what a brilliant little setting :D

It's between Mental Ray and Maya Software, then. A test of render timing for each will make the decision for me.

Character Arc

The two things i am implementing into my animation are reflective of my studies into how personality is shown through movment and how relationships can affect this personality, by introducing a character arc to illustrate the evolution.
William goes from a reserved, isolated, but content, bachelor to realising that a little company can be good for him, and he lightens up considerably, becoming a lot more relaxed and outgoing in his movements. For a man of such serious nature, Jake the puppy sure brings out a smile in his face.

Slipper Scene posed

Not 100% finished with posing, but near enough.
The stolen slipper scene!
Complete with bouncing ears.
Still needs a lot of work, sadly, but having a break from this scene for now. (That, and uni is about to close :)

Happy Puppy Sad Puppy

Jake gets put outside and isn't too happy about this :3
What a cute face.

First scene blocking.

Sad Will

Been redrafting the final two scenes as they were the shortest and easiest, only requiring a few touch ups, and no major poses were needed to be added. William has changed and become much more sad about what he is hearing at the door, making it clearer that it is someone asking for the puppy. Here we see his vulnerable side, and that he has changed how he is because of his newfound friend. The final shot is him realising that he has made this character arc, and he is disappointed in himself for not finding friendship sooner. Or so that's the idea ^^

More Puppy holding

Character interplay is difficult! Didn't really see this taking as long as it has, but the scene's shaping up :) Blocked animation to follow.

Shockface

Well, how would you react to a house intruder? :P

Book scene revamp

Concentrating mainly on the physical interaction between the two, with a few minor touchups elsewhere


Edit: Not a clue what is going on with the eye textures/background flashing... strange.

Business Cards

Ordered my business cards from Moo.com for my exhibition :)

Back

Front

Picturez

A couple of images created with the intentions of using as a business card design but decided that it would stand purely as an interesting blog post :P

Final sequence

Been blocking in the movements for the final sequence. This last sequence is very slow paced and was quite easy to do in comparison to the other scenes i've attempted so far. This is due to it being early morning and both characters are still sleepy. And they're quite short, too.

Shot Progression

From Storyboard to Maya!

The Stare

Drawing inspiration from the case study conducted into 'How To Train Your Dragon' by Dreamworks Pictures, I have created a piece of animation that shows the relationship between William and Jake beginning to show through the form of a stare. I felt this was effective in Hiccup and toothless' relationship, especially since it is a similar combination of man and animal. This was useful in considering how to show their relationship gradually building and not just happening.

Coloured Environment

Environment has been given simple coloured lamberts to make it look a little less monochrome. Intentions were to create a short piece of work in progress for the showcase advert.

A New Post!

After a break from blogging, it's time to start posting again.
It's certainly been a busy month of working hard.

William's model has been rigged and skinned, i did all of this myself.
I have been blocking in animation using a quickly constructed environment of william's bedroom and this rigged model. I have been leaving out the puppy's animation because it was not available to me.
The rigging for the puppy character was outsourced to a masters student named James Kyle, who very kindly agreed to help me in exchange for letting him use the polygon model. This has taken a while to get back to me in perfect working condition so i am preparing to animate him from now on.

I have split my animation up into small manageable sections, beginning with what i feel are the two most important, that show william's character transition and the status relationships between the two characters.

Below is the 2nd pass of the blocking for this scene that i have named 'The Book Scene' unofficially.

Missing is the interaction between William and Jake and so this affects the points in which they touch, etc.

Animatic

The animatic for my animated sequence has come a long way from where it first started. Due to timing issues, a few frames have been left in the sketch stage so I can continue to move forward with the animation. Sound effects have been added to further clarify the actions, as well as background music by City and Colour. It is unclear at this stage what i will actually use for the final audio. It's low on the priority list, anyway.

Textured Will

Began working on blendshapes before moving onto skinning mesh to skeleton.

Reference Footage

Some reference footage taken of my dog, Finlay, while on a walk. Shows a walk and run cycle as well as a sitting down and excited jumping motion. Though Finlay is 10 years old, the basic principles of his movement will still apply to Jake the puppy, but will be slightly different due to difference in age. I have looked at many reference videos for puppys specifically on youtube and other online video archives in order to combat this.
Basically i'm gathering as much evidence as possible in order to strengthen my quadruped animation, as it is not something i have spent a deal of time looking at until now.

William Model

3D model of William has been modelled, uv mapped and an accompanying rig has been fully created. There is a temporary texture. Blendshapes will be made before the rig is bound to the mesh.
A lot of work had to be done to ensure that the topology is suitable for animation, as well as the skeletal rig. Although they are far from perfect, i am hoping that they are to the best of my limited knowledge and will allow me to display a satisfactory animation with them.
I'm going to try and stress that the focus of my project is animation and not this part of the pre production, while still displaying my ability to perform tasks such as modelling and rigging.

Extra sequence



William smiles briefly.

He sits down in his chair, with his newspaper.



He reads it.



He peers over the top of the paper.



Puppy is happy to see him,
begins wagging his tail.



William quickly replaces the newspaper over his face.



He gives in.



Motions to the puppy.



                       



Puppy jumps up too quickly, startles him.



                       

He gently puts the puppy on the floor.

He goes back to reading the paper.

                       

Sure enough, in the morning, the puppy is sleeping peacefully on his knee.

Storyboarding

Revising storyboards, thinking about how to gradually allow William's character to change and showing the arc, while thinking about how to minimise workload when it comes to animating the now-quite-long animation.
Created a short sequence to slot into the story that shows a little more of william's character and shows his gradual acceptance of another's company.

William sits down on his couch and reads his newspaper.
He peers over it, curiously.
The puppy is there, and gets excited to see him.
He quickly recovers his face with the paper, indignant.
Expression eventually changes, he sighs and folds the paper.
He motions to the puppy, who gets too excited and leaps upon him.
He is shocked and slightly hurt and so quickly pushes the puppy off him, reopening the paper.
Fade out, fade in to the puppy asleep on his lap.

Thinking about the opening sequence, a sequence in the film "Requiem for a Dream" springs to mind as being helpful to think about.

The montage that hints about their drug use without actually showing it directly is helpful to think about how to minimise animation workload while still communicating the story effectively.

Excited Puppy animation

Slightly too fast.

Pitch 02/12

Feedback from my February pitch -

Animatic?
Animations?
Human model really needs done
Puppy tests - test rig - movement to make it cute - practice
how to train your dragon - human/cat relationship
Update gantt chart
Dog video - Finlay
Puppies movement, clumsy
Youtube videos

(Revise storyboards to accommodate better use of staging to minimise workload. Think about reusing animations.)
(Add in new bit of story to boards.)


\o/

Excited Puppy

Nico, a rig downloaded from creativecrash.com, is a model far more closely resembling a dragonic creature than a dog. Using a little imagination i have used this rig to practise animation for Jake the puppy. Below is a simple animation of him getting excited, as puppies often do, before realising that it's not so exciting after all. I plan to do more test animations with Nico, it is a brilliant rig and a lot of fun to experiment with.

Puppy videos

Power Centres 2

Media Tests.
Looking at Power centres and trying to re create scenes from my animation using downloaded rigs, to try and show the power centres and emotions of the characters at the time.

William, shocked to find a dog in his house.

Playful puppy.

Agitated, checking his watch. It's too late to still be awake.

Curiously checking the hallway, no one is at the door.

Coming home from work, tired.

Storyboards



Man comes home, through front door.





He fills the kettle with water.

 

It is William. He looks at his watch.

He is tired so exits the room.

He goes to his bedroom.

The kettle boils.

He comes back, in his pijamas.

He sits down, with a mug of hot chocolate.

He reads the newspaper, at the counter.

There is a scratching at the door.

The scratching persists.

William goes to investigate, but no one is there.

He comes back inside, confused.

When he looks up, there is a puppy on his stool.

He is taken aback, shocked.

He picks up the dog, confused and wary.

And places it outside the door.

Closing it behind it, gently.

He checks his watch again, it is getting late.

He experiences yet another shock as he realises

The puppy has somehow gotten back inside
and stolen his slipper.

He approaches slowly but the puppy runs.

He finds the puppy in his bedroom.

He takes the slipper and pats the puppy cautiously.

The puppy is happy and runs around excitedly.

Moved by this, william begins to accept
that a friend could be fun.

It is morning, and they are asleep on the couch.

There is a rushed knocking at the door.

William wakes up, the puppy runs off again.

He answers the door.

There is someone outside it, asking him a question.

He turns to his flat, looking for the puppy.

He turns back to the visitor, reluctant and sad.