Post 31 - Final animation plus critique

Critique

The aim of task three was to produce an advanced piece of work, which demonstrates both technical and creative skills in the field of animation and motion. In order to do this, I used Autodesk's 3ds Max. The animation was key framed and used a selection of tools and menus. These include the following:

- Motion: Trajectory view (A great tool, which draws a line in between key frames for clear visual reference as to where elements in the scene are set to move)

- Link tool (To link the gun/s to the rigged characters in the scene, plus a one occasion a camera to a circle in order to get a smoother shot)

- Curve editor (A form of polishing and smoothing out targeted key frames, using a graph style user interface)

- Key frame duplication (Although a simple procedure, extensive re-positioning of certain key frames, once established in the scene proved to be a bit of a challenge)

Positives

The outcome of this task has several, observable good points. I feel that the animation has a simple, but reasonably clear narrative (standard beginning, middle and end with an outcome) and each character's introduction to the scene worked in establishing essentially who to side with (robot = bad). Also, the sequence includes a range of varying animations, namely full figure, gesture, facial, emotion and weight. The actions within the scene use the allotted time well and is spread over the whole scene. It also demonstrates a good understanding of timing and a considerable amount of attention to the use of cameras (both position and movement).

Negatives

As with all products and work, there will be flaws. In my opinion some of the animation, specifically in some running sequences isn't quite right. I feel that over time this will improve, but limits in my own experience has resulted in some of these weaknesses showing through into this task. In addition, as with the run cycles, some motions are a little rigid and lack some secondary motion. As much detail was made to subtle motions, but unfortunately, some actions had proven beyond my current capabilities. Although this is an animated short, I do believe that it is at times a little bland. Ii sense of bleakness was what I was aiming for, but the adverse effect is that other than the character's interaction, very little else happens. Had the scene been longer, I feel that more content would had to of been included.

Regrets

Similarly to that of the previous section, I have several regrets. The main one is that although I created the final landscape, all of the components were sourced and not made by myself. It is my ultimate goal to be able to make these elements in the future.

Originally, the story was going to be longer and have an additional character, plus a low flying craft. At the point just before the robot fires, he was originally going to be intersected by a second human character with a sniper rifle. It was going to be this second human character that was going to be killed ad this would of been done by another robot rig. Also, a ship was originally intended to be seen to release the projectile (or bomb), allowing for a much larger scope for camera angles and plot. a point of view camera was going to be used for the low flying craft. This extended storyline would of created a much more interesting scene and would of demonstrated an even more extensive range of skills. However, it was decided that this may of made the animation too long, so going with a policy of quality over quantity and so simplified. This sequence was originally inspired by the Halo Reach game trailer, mentioned in an earlier post. The original intended extended plot and character sequences would of fallen into this category, but due to the reduction of content, regrettably this seemed to take a step back from this.

Future improvements

There are several improvements that I feel would of been very interesting to explore, should I of had more time on this task. Firstly, at one point I looked into the idea of putting some music onto the animation, but unfortunately, being unable to choose a suitable track plus time restraints, I was unable to do this. Similarly to the regrets section, I would also of added the originally intended four characters, rather than two.

Summary

To sum up, I feel that I have created a good piece of work using a substantial amount research into the theory behind motion, as well as building on my recently acquired technical skills. I put some hard work into this task, which I fell had paid off. On top of this, I have also developed my objective methodology when discussing my own work, and using this in a constructive manner in order to improve.

Post 30 - Final scene - explosion

To end the scene, I have animated the robot throwing it's gun to the ground. Then, an explosion in the background occurs which fills the scene. A lot of work had gone into making this scene look how I wanted it to.

First of all, the robot in the final scene isn't the same rig as in the rest of the animation. The scene called for the robot's gun to be thrown to the ground, which posed a slight problem. The gun had been linked to the wrist of the robot rig, and un-linking this would result in it being unlinked throughout the whole animation. The solution was to have I second rig, identical to the first pop into shot when it was needed. This rig has a gun, but it is not linked to it allowing the gun to be seamlessly thrown to the ground (shown from below the terrain).

Another change I have made is the changing of the lever label. This initially read as 'SELF DESTRUCT'. I felt that this label was slightly abstract and didn't act as a clear enough visual aid. So I have now changed this to 'AUTO DESTRUCT'. Although slightly vague, it no longer implies that something, or someone is going to self destruct, but that pulling the lever is an action with an external consequence.

The animation has gone through a series of additional tweaks and final touches. One such example includes a simple left arm re-positioning. The beginning of the animation shows the human character hold the stock of his gun (shown in the file labeled VERSION 1 of the task three submission), but this was not aligned properly. Unfortunately, fixing this meant that several compensatory tweaks had to be made to both the lever pulling and final death scenes. These did however allowed me to take another look at other areas of the sequence and I am happy to say that it is now at a satisfactory level of completion. The next phase is to render it out with the atmospherics and displacements switched on. This will accompanied with on objective critique.

The critique will comprise of a brief discussion on the process as a whole, future improvements and a summary of what core technical and creative skills I feel have been demonstrated.

Post 29 - Death of a Dee

The following is the workings out of the human character's death from being shot by the robot. Initially, it was animated to appear to be shot in the shoulder, and fall in a slight rotating fashion with the camera rotating from left to right. 

However after discussing this scene with Darren, it became apparent that it was unclear as to whether or not he had in fact been hit, or if he had dodged the bullet. I changed this by having the bullet hit him closer to the neck and show more of a reaction by initially holding / reaching for his neck before falling to the ground. Although this clip does not show it, the scene starts with the robot shooting then it follows the bullet in a quick, rigid pace. This then follows onto the scene below.

After viewing this, I then rearranged the scene and the way it would be shot. The camera has been slowed down and made much more static by splitting the shot into two. It now features the robot firing the weapon and then cuts to the slow motion sequence, which is now shot from opposite side to before (also now shows the bullet in slow motion). The camera then rotates from right to left at the same speed as the initial scene.

I feel that this is much more successful as it makes it a lot clearer that the bullet does in fact hit the main character. By showing it travelling slowly and using a steady second camera, it makes it easier to digest the sequence, so less time is spent chasing a fast moving camera. This is a good example of how 'less is more' in that less motion of the camera potentially gives the viewer more information and time to understand the scene. Some motions are still rough at this stage, but it is a definite move forward.

Post 28 - Material problem... and solution

Local mountain terrain                                                                    World mountain terrain

One problem that I came across, unrelated to animation is the pre-built scene. A displacement map and atmospheric effect has been placed on the scene to make the terrain covered in snow. During the creation process, it was necessary to increase the size of the environment. This affected the atmospheric settings and resulted in the terrain being simply brown. After a lot of wading through material settings and sheets of script, I discovered that simply changing the material properties assigned to the terrain from 'local' to 'world'.

This did the trick, fixed the atmosphere effect and created a much better scene. Several early videos can be seen to have this brown terrain effect. This was a mistake and has been fixed.

Post 27 - Lever Shot

Here is the next sequence, which shows the main character running towards the lever and pulling it. Attention was made to the change of emotion (facial expression), the hesitation before he pulls the lever and the reaction once he has done so. I wanted to create a sense of desperation and fear.

The first video is the first run through and the second is the final, polished version with atmospherics and trajectory polishing. The positioning of the human character just before the bullet hits him has also been altered.

I have recently been using the trajectory tool, as shown to me by Darren Wall.This is a brilliant tool and essentially draws a red line in between key frames in order to show where objects etc are moving. I shall be using this tool (or option) extensively during the final stages of polishing and tweaking.

Post 26 - Robot Walk tweaked

Here is the robot sequence as a result of improving the key frames, camera position and timing. It depicts the robot walking, aiming and aiming it's rifle. For this video, I have added the atmospherics back in (snow, fog etc).

I feel that this is much smoother and works well as a result of knee anchor manipulation and after following the 'foot guide' which I devised. I tried to pay close attention to the weight of the motions involved in stopping and kneeling down (also subtle movements in the aiming of the rifle).

 

Looking back at the initial research I conducted in creating a walk cycle, I quickly jotted down the following. It is a frame by frame action for the footing of the walk / run cycle (whole cycle of one foot from frame 1-14). It is basic, but variations of the same instruction has been used throughout the animation:

Walk cycle in 14 Frames

First Foot

Frame 1 - DIRECTION POSITION KEYED IN.

 

Frame 2 - Toe roll (40-45% approx).

Frame 7 - Toe roll (0%), foot rotate (35%), raise leg (at which point the waist is also slightly higher).

Frame 12 - foot rotate (-45%), plus positioned so that the heal is touching the ground.

Frame 14 - foot rotate (10%) - DIRECTION POSITION KEYED OUT (waist as far in front before the knee joint of the other leg can no longer be seen to have a influence over the leg. Waist also lowered slightly).

NOTES

- Once the walk cycle has started, Foot B should start its cycle two frames before the end of Foot A. With one foot off the ground before the other, this would hopefully create the sense of haste).

- The waist should move in a forward direction and end as forward it can be, whilst both knee anchors still have influence over the legs (too much in one direction would result in an unrealistic motion as the shin and thigh rarely are the same angle when walking).

Post 25 - Initial Test Renders

(First clips and notes)


Here are the first few renders I have created for the process of continual study and improvement.




This clip is an early 'roughed out' first half of the animation. In it, some movements have been blocked in and not animated. This was to test the camera positions and timing. It is of a low quality and the atmospherics have been switched off in order to speed up render times. From this, it became apparent that I need to slow down a lot of my motions. I am working at approximatley 30 frames per second and I am used to 24-25 fps. I will learn to adapt to this speed as altering the speed at this stage will render any key frames out of sync. Also, a lot of the camera motion is a tad clunky and will be improved on once more animations have been created.


After looking at this, I started to animate the robot and created a series of walk cycle test clips. This one in particular was made to focus on the hop, or small jump due to a dip in the terrain.



Then, added some camera motion. This rotates and is intended to rise and show more of the scene at the end of this sequence.



Problems noted include:

- Too many key frames, making the motion jumpy
- Some steps too slow
- Position of knee hierarchy too wide apart (John Wayne syndrome)
- Key frames from left steps to right steps separate and not smooth enough.

These will be fixed and reported on.


I have so far been creating approximately 8-15 clips of each sequence in order to study and progress. The next few posts will include a selected few, showing my development.