Week 5- Force Trajectory

 

This sessions work looked at anticipating movements and how to add it into animation. For the Moom character lifting weights, it means him crouching down before lifting the weight and leaving his arms stretched longer to show that he is lifting something heavy. There are still some issues with the arm lengths and elbows as the arms are ever so slightly different in lengths.  

Maya - Lighting and Rendering 2 - Stand Ins (Proxies)

 Stand Ins, or Proxies, are an effective way to populate a render without slowing down the render view or the viewport. You can create a Stand in through a Arnold setting which results in a bounding box that represents the volume of your chosen object. You can then duplicate this box to create multiple versions of the same object. 

The viewport only shows the bounding box, which can sometimes hinder the process, for example, if the robot model faced a certain way you wouldn't be able to see where the robot is currently facing. A fix for this is using the viewport draw mode to insert a low res depiction of the object inside the box.

Final Render

Maya - Lighting and Rendering 2 - AOV's

AOV’s are essentially separate renders using different setting in Arnold Maya, which can be composited together in after effects to create a desired final image. The AOV’s are created in the render settings and saved as an .exr file so that all the layers are saved. In after effects the images are then composted together, in the image below the colour and shading is more effective than the normal render straight from maya.

Final Render 

Character Design - Week 5

 After last weeks session I started to develop my sidekick character further as well as looking into facial expressions and basic landscape designs. After looking at some of my sketches this week, Justin suggested that I add more thought into the silhouette of my Kaiju character, and that my sidekick still needs some more thought as she is a bit on the generic side at this point. 

Kaiju Sketches 

Quick Landscape Design

Sidekick Sketches 

Maya - Lighting and Rendering 2 - Sub Surface Scattering

 This tutorial goes into depth about texturing the skin on a pre-made model and using sub surface scattering to create the right texture to the skin. There are six maps to replicate the layers and surface textures of real skin and create extra detail that isn't there. When bringing in the final Displacement map, in the render view the character will look like a large blob which can be fixed by turning on auto-bumping and reducing the height in the displacement attributes. The final step is to create an ambient occlusion render as well as a beauty render, and edit them together in photoshop.

Final Render

The Martian - Structural Theories and Story Telling

After watching Gravity, we were tasked with finding another linear film that uses the act structure. Films like this are more commonly plot driven with little story. I decided to look at the Martian.

Exposition 

This stage is the introduction to the film's main characters, essentially setting the scene. In the Martin, this is when the audience is introduced to Mark Watney and the rest of his crew. 

Inciting Incident 

The inciting incident is when the crew realises that the storm will prevent them from leaving Mars safely. 

End of Act: Plot Point 1

Mark is struck over the head during the storm and the crew wrongly presume he is dead and make their way back to Earth. Mark wakes up and returns the the groups 'Hub' to avoid running out of oxygen. 

Mid Point 2 (Act 2)

This is when the main character faces their biggest obstacles, for Mark this is a limited supply of food and now way to contact Earth for a rescue. 

Plot Point 2 (End of Act 2)

This stage is when Mark is able to contact Earth and create a food source for him to live off whilst waiting to be rescued. However, a ship launch sending supplies to his rescue crew is destroyed and he now believes his death is inevitable. 

Race to the Climax 

With all of the main issues resolved, Mark rushes to another station on Mars to retrieve a device that will essentially sling shot him to his crew mates ship. 

The Twist?

As Mark finally reaches the atmosphere, his crewmate fails to catch him and he is left unable to reach the ship. He pierces his pressure suite and uses the escaping air to push him towards the ship.

Denouement End

Mark reaches the crew and they return to Earth. Mark becomes a survival instructor for astronaut candidates. The film concludes with scenes of his crew members in their current lives. 

 

This film has an Arc Plot. Although there are scenes in which the main character is not followed, the plot still remains linear. I believe the ending to be closed as there is no more story left. Although the film is heavily plot driven, there are not a large amount of questions left for the audience to ask. 

 

Week 4 - Rhythm and Hang Time - Moom Poses

During this weeks class we looked at adding in extra poses in the animation to create smoother transitions, as well as the importance of the graph editor. When it comes to using the graph editor to clean up animation, if you use it too mush, the animation no longer has any artistic input. However, if you don't use it at all the animation will inevitably end up looking messy. Essentially in the graph editor the curves need to look smooth and rounded.