End of week assignment - Intro to Animation 02

This week our assignment was to animate a robotic arm. We were supposed to have it interact with a ball by picking it up, and then either dropping it or throwing it out of the scene.
 
Since I've never worked with animation before, I decided to wait until later in the week before I started working on it so I got as much practice in class before starting.

Monday 14-16: Practice what I've learnt in class.
Tuesday 14-16: Practice what I've learnt in class, get an idea of what I'm able to do in the given timeframe.
Wednesday 14-19: Plan out the story and poses before I start using Maya. (I actually started working this day after school and got most of the animation down.)
Thursday 14-20: Animate and get most of the animation down. (Got some good feedback this morning on what to tweak from our teacher since I had gotten so much work done the day before.)
Friday 09-16: Polish and tweak the animation, batch render and make the video. (Tweaked some more stuff, rendering out some new frames to make the video better.)

Drawing

This week we drew some more stick figures, working mainly on gestures and CSI (The shapes in which most drawings are made of, Cs Ss and Is).

 

Idea development

My idea this week was to have the robot lying on the ground, bored out of its (artificial) mind, when a ball rolls in and brightens the day! The robot will then play with it, but in the end lose it and get bummed out again.

First I wrote down my idea, which you can see was pretty basic just to get it down on paper, and then I drew in thumbnail poses that told the story more so I had more to work with. I also wrote down the frames where I imagined the poses would be in the timeline, but my final scene got 50 frames more than my original idea because otherwise everything would move so damn fast.

I also had planned to make the video loopable, so the starting pose and the final pose were exactly the same, but after talking to my teacher I decided against it since it'll just look weird if it isn't viewed looping.

Finished product

 

Self evaluation

This week I feel I did pretty well. When I first started doing animation I felt it was ridiculously hard and that I'd never understand it, but then I practiced more and concentrated when doing it, and I finally got a basic understanding of how the simple parts work, so I feel better prepared for the coming weeks when it gets more advanced.

 

End of week assignment - Particles and Dynamics 01

This week our assignment was to use particles and/or dynamics to create an intro for our portfolio.

Since I had never worked with either Bullet dynamics or nParticles, I decided to explore them a bit the first days to familiarize myself with them. My timetable for the week was planned like this:

Monday 14-16: Come up with an idea for the assignment and play around with Bullet and nParticles.
Tuesday 14-16: Play around some more with Bullet and nParticles.
Wednesday 14-19: Start working on my scene.
Thursday 14-20: Work more on my scene, fix physics and particles.Friday 09-16: Polish and tweak, batch render and put the video together.

Drawing

This week we drew stick-figures, and focused on movement in pictures, preparing us for animation in the coming weeks.

Idea development

My initial idea this week was to create a Rube Goldberg device, so I started by looking at a lot of videos and images I found online.

My idea consisted of having a ball travel through a contraption, swapping places with a different ball and then have it turn on a lamp light that lit up my name in the end. 

My main problem with this idea was the limited time we had. Since the video was to be a maximum of 15 seconds long, the whole sequence from start to finish, it meant having 360 frames if the video was to play at 24 frames pr. second. This wasn't really a problem, it only meant the Rube Goldberg sequence had to be pretty short, but it could still be fun and interesting!

After I had done some tests and played around with the physics of Bullet in Maya, I had a fair idea of what I could and couldn't do with it. My only issue was that Bullet often didn't work the way it should, and I wasted a lot of time getting simple parts of it to work, which by Thursday evening got me really worried that I wouldn't be able to finish the assignment. I did some more tests at home, which were working very well and got me excited to keep working on it! I went back to school that night at around 9 PM to get some more work done, and seeing as I had gotten my ideas to work at home very easily, I was extremely motivated. 

My motivation was sadly very short lived, because when I tried doing it again at school, it wouldn't work at all. After fumbling around with what should be very simple for almost an hour, I decided it was more important for me to do something I knew would work, but not as impressive or fun to look at, rather than something half-finished because I couldn't get the software to work. This meant however, that I had less than 18 hours to make it.

I then decided to do a simple, but stylish scene, focusing on the modeling and having some simple physics. My idea was to make a toaster with a piece of bread going into it, and then after a few seconds pop up with my name scorched into it from being toasted. This idea was fairly simple, and I was confident I could do it, so I at least had something okay to submit a few hours later.

Getting the physics to work, even on such a simple idea was still a challenge because Bullet didn't work like intended 90% of the time I used it, even though I was 100% sure I had done it correctly, so I had to redo it until it worked, even if it meant doing the exact same thing 10 times. It only has to work once!

To get the bread to change textures from a regular bread texture to a burned one with my name I used a ramp with the textured, and keyed the position to the timeline. For some reason it messed up so the transition disappeared when I baked the animations.

I also wanted to add particle smoke coming out of the toaster when the bread is being toasted, but I decided against it for now due to the time pressure I had.

Self evaluation

This week I'm not too satisfied with my own work. I honestly hate swapping ideas mid-work, but seeing as I couldn't get my initial idea to work correctly, I felt it was best to do something else than waste any more time on something that might not work at all in the end. I'm still going to keep working on this video and polish it the next weeks when I have time to spare.

I also learned that I really enjoyed working with the physics engine, and I'm definitely going to do more of that in my spare time.

Project 01 - Robot

In this project our assignment was to create a robot and a prop, from concept to final
composited image.
We should focus on wether it’s realistic, games or cartoony style. The robot also needs
to be believeable in the way that it has to have a functional design.
I made a time-plan right away, seeing as we only had two weeks on such a large
project, time management is fairly important.

Week1:
Monday – 09:00 – 16:00 - Create moodboards and play with design.
Tuesday – 09:00 – 16:00 - Play with the design and finalize a design.
Wednesday – 09:00 – 16:00 - Start modeling by blocking out a simple pose to see if it
would work, and start on the actual robot.
Thursday – 09:00 – 16:00 - Continue modeling and ask for feedback.
Friday – 09:00 – 16:00 - Finish modeling and prepare for unwrapping next week.

Week 2:
Monday – 09:00 – 16:00 – Unwrap the entire model (This day was shortened and I went
home at 14:00 due to a heavy headache, but I was able to finish most of the
unwrapping before I left.)
Tuesday – 09:00 – 16:00 – Start texturing! ( I came in earlier today, at around 07:15, to
finish unwrapping and stay on track due to my headache the day before.)
Wednesday – 09:00 – 16:00 – Finish creating the diffuse-, normal- and specular-maps.
Thursday - 09:00 – 16:00 – Light and render the scene.
Friday - 09:00 – 16:00 – Write the report and blog post. Submit!

Planning and idea development

I was very unsure about the style and type of robot when I started out, but I was pretty
sure I wanted to make a humanoid or military robot. I then found a lot of reference
pictures online to use as a moodboard.

After some thought I realized I would rather make something non-human and
animalistic, but I was still stuck on the military design.

I still wasn’t sure about the style and the military designs. Because of this I completely
rethought the idea and decided on making one that’s neither humanoid or military. I
then started drawing concepts and designs, coming up with a story that I would design
the robot around.
My idea was that the robot was built by a lonely man in a post-apocalyptic world who
wanted a companion. He built it out scrap around his workshop and the head came
from an old CRT-screen and is only able to display emotion through pixelated facial
expressions.
Because I wanted the robot to feel like a friendly companion, I decided on making the
robot small, and non-intimidating in his design. His head became a CRT-screen, his arms
slim and weak, and his legs short and stumpy. His hands were originally designed as a 3-fingered claw, but during modeling I decided against it as I felt it was more ‘evil’ and
‘friendly’ in its design. The prop I decided on was a brain, which will be explained in the
story chapter of this text.

After I had gotten the initial idea down I made a drawing of how I would pose my
robot. At this point I was still playing around with the idea of him holding something else
than a brain, bu tafter some thought I decided the brain would be the most fitting, and
break away from the ‘cute’ design I gave the robot, and give the model some
contrast.

Modeling

I started out by blocking out a small version of my what I pictured my robot would look
like, and his pose, just to see how things would be connected and if I had missed
something in my planning stages.

I realized that I would need to figure out how to attach the torso to the pelvis with some
kind of waist, but I would tackle that when I got to it.
Satisfied with the pose I began modeling the head, AKA the CRT-monitor.

Got the basic shape down.

Gotten the monitor done and made what would work as the neck. Since I wanted the
robot to look scared and protective of the brain, it was important that the neck would
be able to move at least somewhat like a human neck, to portray the feelings I
wanted. This made the neck consist of multiple parts and small engines that would
make it move in a believable way.

I got kind of stuck when figuring out how the neck would connect to the monitor, so
instead of dwelling too much on that I moved on to the torso and decided to return to
the neck later.

I made a few variations of the arms, but I decided on this design due to it’s functionality
and shape. Even though I decided to make a robot that wasn’t similar to humans, I still
wanted to give it a functioning design, and the human arms are a great source of
inspiration.
The shoulder joint rotates, and bends, then the elbow bends in a natural way, and the
wrist can also rotate and bend. At the end the claw, or pincers came. I decided to
have just two pincers instead of three. This was because I felt it looked more innocent
and friendly, while the three looked more ‘evil’. I n my eyes. I also wanted to make the
pincers look like they could take a beating, but also soft at the same time, that’s why I
made it more solid and sharp on the outside, but soft and ‘friendly’ on the inside.
Because the robot would hold something in the final pose, I didn’t want the arms to
block the view of what he’s holding, and decided to keep the forearms slim and the
upper arms a bit more solid without being too bulky.

At this point I had modeled everything except the pelvis and suitcase. My initial design
had a batterypack on his back, but due to the pose and camera angle I was going for,
I decided to make it a suitcase. This because the batteries wouldn’t really be visible
from the front, but also because the shape of a suitcase is easier recognizable and
adds more to the silhouette.

I wanted to have the suitcase stick to the robot in a natural and believeable way, so I
did the simple thing and gave him a belt to strap it to himself with. I also felt this was
easier to relate with than a metal contrapment holding it onto its body.


To get the brain looking the way I wanted I imported it into Mudbox and sculpted out a
highpoly version to bake normal maps with.
This is before the bake.

And this is after. It turned out pretty good in my opinion, and adds a lot more to the
shape without adding any more quads.

I took great care as to use my UV-space as best I could. This is an example as to how I
unwrapped the arms of the robot.

Finished product

These are just 4 of the 12 pictures we were assigned to deliver in this project.

When texturing it I wanted to make the face feel like a CRT-screen, which I think I
managed to a certain degree. Initially I had just a curved monitor with a diffuse, normal
and specular map on it, but after getting some feedback I decided to try something
different. I then separated the screen from the rest of the monitor, made an inside with
the face and gave the face a black and white map I could manipulate and give some
heavy incandecense or self-illumination to make it feel it’s behind the and not on top
of.

I also used an HDR image to give the glass and metal some better reflections to work
with, and honestly I think it paid off.

My focus on the facial expression was to keep it pixelated and simple in design so it
would feel simpler and easier to relate with.

Story

The story I made up for this robot is that many, many years after an incident that
destroyed most of life on earth, a lonely, old engineer decided he didn’t want to be
alone any more and built himself a new companion. This companion was a small robot.
The old man and the robot grew close and cared for each other dearly. One day the
old man had gotten too old to carry on, and instructed his robot companion to put his
brain in a container to keep it alive and find him a new body so he could live on again.
The robot did exactly what he was told, and would have done so anyway due to his
love for the old man. His belongings were packed up into an old suitcase and strapped
to the robots back, and the robot brought his friend and his belongings out into the
wasteland of the post-apocalyptic world in search for a new body.
After exploring the wasteland for weeks, protecting the brain from all the dangers of the
wasteland, something closed up on them in the night. Out of the sky, a bright light
shone down on the robot. Protecting what he held the most dear of all things, the robot
embraced the old man’s brain and prepared for the worst.

Self evaluation

During this project I personally feel I’ve worked very hard in the time period given. I had
a plan and I stuck to it. We had some trouble with our internet connection and Maya
licences during this week, but I kept my deadline in mind and did most of my texture
work during the downtime by hand-painting everything rather than relying on textures
online.

When deciding on the color pallette for the robot and brain, I decided to go with
something that’s been used a lot before, which is orange and teal, not because it had
been used before but because it fit my story very well. The robot had a very yellow
color pallette due to the colors warm and welcoming feel, but also because it can feel
a bit cheap.

The base of the brain’s bowl was made teal/blue because it’s a calming color that also
represents safety, which is exactly what the robot needed out in the wasteland.

End of week assignment - Compositing 01

This week our assignment was to use our render passes from last week in Nuke and put them together and tweak the picture.

My timetable for the week was planned like this:

Monday 14-16: Watch tutorials and learn the basics of Nuke.
Tuesday 14-17: Play around with Nuke and figure out how the different nodes work.
Wednesday 14-19: Start working on my render passes and try to make it look like my beautypass.
Thursday 14-20: Add more effects like depth of field, lens flare and bloom.

Drawing

This week we drew thumbnails and made larger versions with more detail after that.

Idea Development

Since I already had a basic idea down, I wanted to look at ideas for effects to add to the beauty pass. I really liked this picture of the lens flare, and decided to use as reference when adding to my own image.

Final Image

End of week assignment - Lighting & Render 03

This week our assignment was to light the vehicle, and then do render passes we will be using in next weeks assignment.

My timetable for the week was planned like this:

Monday 14-16: Find a nice background to base the lighting off of, and place the vehicle accordingly.
Tuesday 14-17: Keep playing around with different placements and see what works best and decide!
Wednesday 14-19: Place the lighting in the scene and make it fit according to the background image and make it look nice on the model.
Thursday 14-20: Start doing render passes and work on getting them to look nice.

Drawing

This week we also drew a fair bit, and we focused a lot on shapes and different techniques again.

Idea Development

For this assignment I wanted to show my vehicle off as it is flying through the air and decided on a sky background. I looked around for reference images, and as expected there aren't many pictures of flying row-boats with cannons mounted on the front! I then widened my search to planes in the sky, and found two nice pictures.

 

 Personally I liked the top one the most and decided to go with something similar for my render. I Googled and found a picture with similar clouds and sun placement, and placed my vehicle accordingly. I didn't like the look of it, but along with David (my teacher), we found it might look really cool with it looking like it was doing a turn and slanting a bit through the air. I drew up a concept on how I thought it would look like, and then moved the balloon to match the image, and I think it looked pretty cool so I went with it!

 

Final Render

Rendertime 1:20

End of week assignment - Texturing 03

This week our assignment was to texture the vehicle we modeled last week.

My timetable for the week was planned like this:

Monday 14-16: Color a concept for the texturing and start unwrapping.
Tuesday 14-17: Finish unwrapping.
Wednesday 14-18: Start texturing.
Thursday 14-18: Finish texturing.

Drawing

This week we also drew a lot, and we focused on the basics once again, which is good for us who aren't very good at drawing.

We did some basic shapes in perspective, and practiced different ways of shading.

Color concept

I decided to go for a bit more realistic look this week than the previous assignment.

Finished product

I decided to keep the balloon out of the picture for the renders because it's the weakest part of this model, and because the boat would have been so small in the picture to fit them both that it would be hard to see what was going on with it.

End of week assignment - Modeling 03

This week our assignment was to model a fantasy/sci-fi vehicle. I decided to model a fantasy vehicle.

My timetable for the week was planned like this:

Monday 14-16: Find inspiration, create a moodboard and draw sketches.
Tuesday 14-17: Design a vehicle on paper and start modeling.
Wednesday 14-18: Model.
Thursday 14-18: Model.

Drawing

This week we drew a lot, which is fun, because I learn more each time!

Our focus this week was on realism, with facial proportions etc.

 

Inspiration, moodboard and sketches

 

Before starting my sketching, I made a moodboard that I felt had the feel I wanted to capture with my model, which is a type of 'Air buccaneer'.

My first sketches, which I didn't like much.

And these are my second sketches, giving more information to what I want it to look like.

Final model

Story

My story with this model is that in this world, the entire planet is covered in water, and all the landmass consists of flying islands. This makes all the vehicles in this world flying. The character using the vehicle I made, is basically an amateur pirate. He comes close to the vehicles he wants to rob, launching his grappling hook to attach his boat to theirs.