My animation update

MY ANIMATIONS . UPDATE.

This is my updated animation that I'm going to use for the showreel in our group project

3D Animation Pipeline

sample of 3D animation pipeline

 3d animation process is divided into several important parts of pre-production, phase of production and post-production. There are good reasons for considering the design and planning process  for the development of 3d animation. 

PRE-PRODUCTION

(Planning and specification)

1. Concept and Storyboards

PRODUCTION

2. Animation

3. Lighting

4. Camera angles

POST-PRODUCTION

5. Compositing

6. Final animation approval.

My animations

In this post I'd like to show my progress. I'm attaching a movie that consists of my 4 animations played from  different angles I want to use in final cinematic.  It still needs tweaking and we have to add other animations but this is practically how my part is it going to look like

Secondary research

Week 5 - Motion Capture

Autodesk Motion Builder - is compatible with Autodesk Maya and other software from Autodesk. It allows us to visualise how our animation is going to look like and we can see it from different angles what makes Motion Builder an extremely helpful software for the animator. It is perfect tool for cleaning up the motion capture animation, pre-visualisation or character animations for 3D game industry in real time. I let's us for non linear editing of animation, modyfing  and adjusting every aspect of the rig movement to the other objects and obstacles. Also it allows us automatically adjusting animation of the movement to different rigs even if they differ with proportions.

On the lecture we found out how to use motion builder, how to adjust the layout, how to import files and all the basics needed to start the work with this Software. It was very useful for people who want to focus on animation career.

My four animations

In this post I want to show all my 4 animations before I put them into Trax Editor


    Video 1 - Shows the Extended Idle Pose

 

Video2 - My character crawling

    Video 3 - Calling for help

    Video 4 - being killed
 

week 8

I've been having problems with Trax Editor. Basically I have created all my 4 animations by now.
What is still to be done is putting them all together in trax editor so they're on one file. The issue is when I import all my animation clips into trax editor it only plays just a one animation. I've been struggling with this for 2 weeks now and it's still not done. I'm a little bit busy with working on the other modules so that's why it takes me so long.

Principles of Animation

Like everything in the world animation as well has got its own principles. Keeping those rules might not be easy nevertheless skilled animators must follow them in order to keep their animations looking convincing and neat looking.

1. Squash and Stretch
gives the weight and volume to the object when it interacts with environment. The perfect example for that rule is bouncing ball.

Squashed: An object to become Shorter must also become Fatter. 

  Stretched: An object to become Taller must become Thinner.

2. Anticipation
You can notice this rule right before the character in the animation is moving. It means that character prepares himself for the action. For example if the character is playing golf he must prepare himself properly before hitting the ball.

 

3. Staging
The similar principle is using in the theatre and films. It’s about forcing spectator to look in a right direction and leading the action so the spectator knows what is most important in the scene. What is happening and what is going to happen. We can make that by setting the character in the proper place, setting the light in the proper direction and angle.  We have to show and highlight important things and avoid unimportant details.

4. Straight ahead and pose to pose animation
These are two methods of making the movement. By using straight ahead method the action is displayed by drawing frame after frame from the beginning of animation to its end. This method is used for creating fast action scenes. Pose to pose method is all about creating key frames with strong poses and then filling frames in between with other poses. Usually animators links these two methods in their work.

 

5. Follow through and overlapping action
This principle makes the animating moves a bit more realistic and gives the impression  that the character acts according to the real physics rules. For example a hand moves in different moment than head or a foot.  In a human body the center of the movement is always a torso. Arms, legs, head and the hair always follow the torso.

6. Slow-out and slow-in. A human body and most of the items need time for start the movement or to stop. For this reason animation looks more realistic if it has more frames in the beginning and in the end of the move than in its middle when the move is the fastest.

7. Arcs. In the process of animation we should mind that moves of the human beings and animals usually follow an arc or circular path. The exception is mechanic move that follows the straight line.

 8. Secondary action – Adding secondary animation in the background usually makes the move more realistic and highlights main parts of the animation. A walking character, besides moving the arms might be whistling, talking to other character or using facial expressions. It is better to add it on the beginning or in the end of the main movement than in the middle.

9. Timing.  It’s difficult and needs practicing Timing gives the mood, emotion, and reaction to another character or to a situation. It is all about giving the proper impression of the movement to the situation that may lead to funny or dramatic effects.

10. Exaggeration . It is very important rule of animation. Exact projection of moves in animation might seem to be boring and static. We have to exaggerate almost every move to make animation more appealing, more interesting

11. Solid drawing. Animator has to know the human anatomy and composition. The sense of the balance and using the shadow is essential. In a classic animation it is all about act study and life drawing. We have to mind proportions and proper shapes of the objects in different phases of the movement.

12. Appeal that something essential in animation that can be compared to the charisma of the actor. The character that appears on the screen doesn’t have to be friendly looking. It is important for the spectator to feel that the character is real and interesting.

PRIMARY RESEARCH 2

This is the video of me showing the moves I would like to use in my animation for my character

Primary Research

this is my idle pose video

week 6

This week I started animating a crawl for my character/

It's just beginning and it's only few seconds of it.

Week 6

In this week I'm going to focus on creating my second animation which is going to be crawl for my character

These are snapshots of my idle pose seen from different angles in a perspective view window in Maya.

week 5

Last week I lost all my work and I had no back up files so I had to start doing my projects all over again but I think I have managed tocreate similiar idle pose as last time. 
I'm uploading 4 different videos of my idle pose showing my character from different angles. 

This is my idle animation I created for my character. It's a first one and I still need a feedback so it might still change.

3rd Idle pose

Another idle pose I created is my character rig while crawling right before he puts his hand up in order to call for help. Basically this pose is to help me start to animate the crawl.

WEEK 3

 Since last note I was trying to find some convincing poses that I could use for my character rig. I'm animating an injured warrior crawling so I was looking for references. I managed to create two poses for my model that look decent in my opinion.

 
 
 

This pose is my Idle pose. A wounded warrior lying on the ground. He starts crawling in order to escape from a battle field.



The next pose shows the same warrior putting his hand up calling for help right before dying.

Week 2

perspective view

top view

side view

I was playing around my rig which I like so much. Maybe the controllers are not the best in the world but still I like the character and how it moves... According to my storyboard ... I was trying to make that first idle pose. I'm going to start from this in order to create my idle animation.  Here I took some screenshots from maya showing the idle pose of a wounded character crawling on the ground.

First Week

So this is more or less the first concept of our storyboard for animation project that we are going to do this semester. My part of an animation will be showing a wounded warrior crawling on the ground, then asking for help by putting his hand up and then being stabbed by another character with a sword.

Here you can see a first concept of storyboard that we are going to do.