There’s a chance - final animation
Here is my final animation
I am quite happy of what I have done but as always there are things which I could do better.
For example, when the Floyd screams ‘yeaah!’ at the end of the movie I think the body language does not really match the voice. Also Marry in some parts could be animated better.
But there are some things that I like. I like the silence when Marry is telling Floyd that his chances are not good. Floyd did not move for a moment as if he could not believe it. I also like the moment when he smiles after Marry told him his got one chance in a million. The idea was to make it funny and I think I achieved this objective.
Character animation was my favourite module in this semester. I love working on animations, bringing characters to life and make my own movie. I like the responsibility and challenge that making the animation brings. It was also a great opportunity to me to make something funny as I never did anything like that before (except ‘cartoon network’ idents which I did for ‘3D modelling and animation’ module, but they were only couple of seconds long each).
I wish I could have more time to make it better. The problems that I had with my computer caused that most of the time I had to spend on my final project.
Like never before, many people asked me for feedbacks and also how to deal with some technical problems. I remember my first steps into 3D world and animation and I remember how difficult it was (and still is) so I am glad that I could help my colleagues with my knowledge and experience.
And that would be over :)
Take care guys! I wish you all good :)
Saturday, 1 May 2010
walking
In the first shot of the movie I wanted to have two characters which were walking, so that the shot was more vivid.
I used just one model of a character but I changed the colours so finally they look different. To create a character’s move I used the biped option ‘footsteps’. Both of my characters have different walk speed which was set up in ‘time to next footstep’ window.
To separate their walking, one of the characters turns and then descends from the pavement. Now they are walking in different planes..
I used just one model of a character but I changed the colours so finally they look different. To create a character’s move I used the biped option ‘footsteps’. Both of my characters have different walk speed which was set up in ‘time to next footstep’ window.
To separate their walking, one of the characters turns and then descends from the pavement. Now they are walking in different planes..
animation
I started my character animation from face.
To animate the face I decided to use ‘Morpher’. Morpher is not as easy to use as many people think. The problem to do with morpher can appear when an object (in this case character) has many channels and they are to be used with morpher option.
Floyd has seven basic morpher positions
Each face of a model has a different purpose. My models have different lips so that they could imitate ‘u’, ‘a&i’, ‘e’, ‘o’ and others. There was also a model with closed eyes, smile, with opened mouth and so on. Having all the models completed I was ready to animate the face.
It was very important to me to keep the lips moving according to the sound. To simplify the process of animation in 3ds Max I went to ‘track View’, then on the list (on the left) I clicked the ‘sound’ and I imported the original video soundtrack (with characters talking to each other)
Thanks to this I was able to match the mouth motion and the sound very easily.
The head was animated by ‘bones’ which allowed me very easily to rotate the face (with biped it could take more time). The eyes as always were linked to the dummy object by ‘look At constraint’ option.
The rest of the body was attached to the ‘biped’. With biped it was easy to animate hands and walking (for another characters).
The same thing was with Marry.
The face animation is over one minute long (1500 frames). Floyd’s face animation contains over 800 key frames.
When the mouth animating was completed (for both characters) the next step was to take care of the eyes. They are extremely important because the viewer actually looks at character’s eyes during watching. The eyes can make a character be more distinct.. To make the animation faster, Mary’s eyes were set up to fallow Floyd’s face. Thanks to this her eyes were animated automatically.
To animate the face I decided to use ‘Morpher’. Morpher is not as easy to use as many people think. The problem to do with morpher can appear when an object (in this case character) has many channels and they are to be used with morpher option.
Floyd has seven basic morpher positions
Each face of a model has a different purpose. My models have different lips so that they could imitate ‘u’, ‘a&i’, ‘e’, ‘o’ and others. There was also a model with closed eyes, smile, with opened mouth and so on. Having all the models completed I was ready to animate the face.
It was very important to me to keep the lips moving according to the sound. To simplify the process of animation in 3ds Max I went to ‘track View’, then on the list (on the left) I clicked the ‘sound’ and I imported the original video soundtrack (with characters talking to each other)
Thanks to this I was able to match the mouth motion and the sound very easily.
The head was animated by ‘bones’ which allowed me very easily to rotate the face (with biped it could take more time). The eyes as always were linked to the dummy object by ‘look At constraint’ option.
The rest of the body was attached to the ‘biped’. With biped it was easy to animate hands and walking (for another characters).
The same thing was with Marry.
The face animation is over one minute long (1500 frames). Floyd’s face animation contains over 800 key frames.
When the mouth animating was completed (for both characters) the next step was to take care of the eyes. They are extremely important because the viewer actually looks at character’s eyes during watching. The eyes can make a character be more distinct.. To make the animation faster, Mary’s eyes were set up to fallow Floyd’s face. Thanks to this her eyes were animated automatically.
Preparing for animation - storyboard&soundtrack
As always before starting any animation it is good to prepare a good storyboard. In this case, the process took me little time because the storyboard was based on the real movie.
At the beginning of my movie I wanted to have a long shot of the city, when camera goes down to finally stop above the ground in the front of a pub.
Because I wanted my characters to talk to each other I downloaded a reference movie. The sound in this movie (both music and speech) was very helpful when I started working on the character lips.
At the beginning of my movie I wanted to have a long shot of the city, when camera goes down to finally stop above the ground in the front of a pub.
Because I wanted my characters to talk to each other I downloaded a reference movie. The sound in this movie (both music and speech) was very helpful when I started working on the character lips.
Reference point
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcGj57cQIeg&feature=related
This is the movie I’m going with.
Before I started my animation I had observed the art of acting to learn how to show emotions, movement and body language.
As it can be seen, Floyd is a little nervous when asking what his chances are with her. When he hears ‘not good’ his quite shocked. It become difficult to him to speak. After hearing that his chances are like one to million, he explains to himself that anyway he has a chance. Then he screams of joy.
When we look at Marry we just can say that she tries not to hurt Floyd. She does not feel comfortable when she gives Floyd an honest answer. On the other hand, she gently tries to tell him that she’s not interested in him.
My intention was not to copy every move of the actor and incorporate it into the CG character (as it could take a long time), but to use some of the key areas (problem areas) as a reference point and create something on my own. The idea from the beginning was the same – to make a funny movie.
I had problems with my computer, as a result I lost character models and the scene. There was no way out; they had to be modelled again with the same principle as described before. Visual differences are minor.
This is the movie I’m going with.
Before I started my animation I had observed the art of acting to learn how to show emotions, movement and body language.
As it can be seen, Floyd is a little nervous when asking what his chances are with her. When he hears ‘not good’ his quite shocked. It become difficult to him to speak. After hearing that his chances are like one to million, he explains to himself that anyway he has a chance. Then he screams of joy.
When we look at Marry we just can say that she tries not to hurt Floyd. She does not feel comfortable when she gives Floyd an honest answer. On the other hand, she gently tries to tell him that she’s not interested in him.
My intention was not to copy every move of the actor and incorporate it into the CG character (as it could take a long time), but to use some of the key areas (problem areas) as a reference point and create something on my own. The idea from the beginning was the same – to make a funny movie.
I had problems with my computer, as a result I lost character models and the scene. There was no way out; they had to be modelled again with the same principle as described before. Visual differences are minor.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
facial animation- mouth
just before I will explain and describe anything I would like to show what I have done so far.
basic facial animation. Right now only mouth are animated..eyes, and rest of the body will be done later..
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
characterisation
Floyd: Floyd is a single guy. He’s desperate to find a girlfriend and have a date with her. He’s naive and slightly stupid but not dangerous. He’s just a funny guy who simply doesn’t know how to talk to women.
Marry: Marry is a single woman and she does not look for a guy....but she’s a very nice woman. She cannot just ignore or pass by someone who wants to talk to her...
Marry: Marry is a single woman and she does not look for a guy....but she’s a very nice woman. She cannot just ignore or pass by someone who wants to talk to her...
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Main characters: faces
I finally made two heads for the main characters.
When UI was looking for sample animations I found some interesting character designs. Here are examples:
To make the modelling easier I deleted the half of the sphere and then I applied the symmetry.
Then I was modelling my character face. I started from the nose, then I made holes for the eyes.
The next step was creating the mouth and adding the eyes. The mouth is important in this model because my character will talk. So I made sure I had enough of polygons around the mouth so the mouth animation would be smooth.
Then I made the hair and I applied the textures. To make the hair I simply selected the top polygons of the model and extruded them.
The same way I created the female character
When UI was looking for sample animations I found some interesting character designs. Here are examples:
As you can see the characters look cartoonish but they are also a bit similar to human. I decided to go with this style because I never replicate someone’s style (I made my characters with some changes). This will allow me to put some emotions into the characters. Besides, I don’t have to make this look realistic – it is recommended that the animation should be cartoonish.
To create the head, at first I used sphere. I turned off the ‘smooth’ option ( after all I want to use ‘turbo smooth’ or ‘mesh smooth’) and I stepped the segments to 55. After that I converted my model into ‘editable poly’.
To make the modelling easier I deleted the half of the sphere and then I applied the symmetry.
Then I was modelling my character face. I started from the nose, then I made holes for the eyes.
The next step was creating the mouth and adding the eyes. The mouth is important in this model because my character will talk. So I made sure I had enough of polygons around the mouth so the mouth animation would be smooth.
Then I made the hair and I applied the textures. To make the hair I simply selected the top polygons of the model and extruded them.
The same way I created the female character
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
design
I finally decided what I want to do for the ‘character animation’ assignment.
I decided to use a particular scene from the movie ‘dumb and dumber’.
Right now I have done the body for the main characters (I’m still working on heads) and I finished the outside scene. I know that our task is not to pay special attention to make the scenes look perfect but, anyway, I want my movie to be well done.
So here is the outside scene. It is still not finished and I didn’t put any lights there. I used the textures that are available in 3ds max tutorials folder. To make the houses look like this I used the box with increased segments and then applied ‘Taper’ and ‘Bend’ modifier. The last thing to do was to put texture into the box.
This is the character that will be shown in the background. It was made from box. The model is very basic and easy to do. Te main characters will look similar to this one..
I decided to use a particular scene from the movie ‘dumb and dumber’.
Right now I have done the body for the main characters (I’m still working on heads) and I finished the outside scene. I know that our task is not to pay special attention to make the scenes look perfect but, anyway, I want my movie to be well done.
So here is the outside scene. It is still not finished and I didn’t put any lights there. I used the textures that are available in 3ds max tutorials folder. To make the houses look like this I used the box with increased segments and then applied ‘Taper’ and ‘Bend’ modifier. The last thing to do was to put texture into the box.
This is the character that will be shown in the background. It was made from box. The model is very basic and easy to do. Te main characters will look similar to this one..
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Ideas
Now it is a good time to think about ideas for the final character animation.
First of all I was looking for a style for the movie. It is important to know what kind of animation I hope to do. I want to do a funny conversation between two characters so I will be able to put some emotions and body language into the animation. I decided I would not try to animate human characters because the animation would look artificially rather than real. Even some big companies like Pixar or Dream Works avoid realistic human characters. I decided I would create some cartoons characters, which allows me to insert some emotions into their acting.
Before I started my work I had made a simple research.
I made a research just to have a better knowledge and idea about how long the movie can be, but the most important in all was to study body language in short animation movie clips. Because what I will try to do is to find a funny conversation movie clip between two real actors, I will have some kind of reference for the facial expression and I will try to make it more ‘cartoonish’.
Here are some examples of short CG movies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsUzz5H7gHo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU6aLDZ4Ero&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvpG_zUDcR0&feature=related
I made a decision that my characters would look quite similar because I really like the style. Right now I know how my movie should look :)
First of all I was looking for a style for the movie. It is important to know what kind of animation I hope to do. I want to do a funny conversation between two characters so I will be able to put some emotions and body language into the animation. I decided I would not try to animate human characters because the animation would look artificially rather than real. Even some big companies like Pixar or Dream Works avoid realistic human characters. I decided I would create some cartoons characters, which allows me to insert some emotions into their acting.
Before I started my work I had made a simple research.
I made a research just to have a better knowledge and idea about how long the movie can be, but the most important in all was to study body language in short animation movie clips. Because what I will try to do is to find a funny conversation movie clip between two real actors, I will have some kind of reference for the facial expression and I will try to make it more ‘cartoonish’.
Here are some examples of short CG movies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsUzz5H7gHo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU6aLDZ4Ero&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvpG_zUDcR0&feature=related
I made a decision that my characters would look quite similar because I really like the style. Right now I know how my movie should look :)
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Introduction
During the first lecture we were told about assignments for this module. Our task is to create 30 sec long character animation.
I made some simple character animation for '3D modelling and Animation' module last year but this time I need to do it better.
At the beginning of the lecture we were shown a documentary movie about body language. That was a good lesson because this not only gave me some of the knowledge but also ideas about my final character animation movie. Right now I don't really know exactly what I am going to do but I have some ideas...
I made some simple character animation for '3D modelling and Animation' module last year but this time I need to do it better.
At the beginning of the lecture we were shown a documentary movie about body language. That was a good lesson because this not only gave me some of the knowledge but also ideas about my final character animation movie. Right now I don't really know exactly what I am going to do but I have some ideas...
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