References for Maya Files:
My plan for animating was to follow Rachel’s advice of making sure every scene was blocked out first. I started by doing a couple of trials testing out my rig, then starting my blockouts from the beginning of the previs. I was told to animate to the camera angle as it would have wasted time animating what cannot be seen in frame, so I positioned the cameras as close as possible to the previs angles, altering timing slightly as necessary. As we were rendering in blender, throughout the blocking out stages, I exported my animations to make sure they played smoothly. Through these tests, I figured out how to play the animations on 2s and 3s by baking the animations in maya on 2s and changing the tangents to constant in blender.
For the apartment and balcony animations, Charli will be rendered on 2s to hint at early anxiety. From my blockout, Alec gave me feedback on her positioning and the movement of the pencil from the sketchbook to her ear, which was slightly too fast. From behind, Charli looked off balance as her arm was sticking out too far. I felt she looked ok from the front, so I moved her elbow closer to her body and snapped it back when the camera cut to the next shot.
During Rachel’s classes, she mentioned that eyes never move smoothly unless tracking something. I kept this in mind and made her tangents stepped when looking around as I felt this subtle change would help her look more natural.
Later on, Alec suggested adding more frustration by having Charli either rip out a page from her sketchbook and throw it away or banging the sketchbook onto her fire escape. Originally, I only added the banging of the sketchbook instead of having her simply walk back into the apartment in frustration. However, after receiving more feedback, we felt having her rip the page out of the sketchbook was needed as well. I used blendshapes on a single plane to create a crumpled sheet of paper when she rips it out and created a small pause after she rips the paper out and throws it away based on feedback I received on my timing.
Maya Files and Playblasts:
After importing the window shot into blender, I noticed that there was random jumping at her feet. I figured out through changing her attributes that the stretchiness was causing the issue as the attribute wouldn’t export as an fbx. Exporting the animation as an alembic worked, however, since alembic files are larger than fbxs and this issue only became apparent later on in semester 2, I decided to go back to any animations that this would affect and alter her movements so we could continue exporting fbxs, keeping our render times the same.
I used my trial animation of Charli falling off the back of the sofa and myself as references. Due to the issue of the leg stretchiness, I had to work with the hands a little and moved them across the sofa sooner as they could not stretch. To allow Charli time to fall asleep, I made the shot of her falling onto the sofa a bit longer than the previs. For the laptop grab, I had originally positioned her hand in the centre of the laptop. Andrew noticed this and recommended for her to grab the laptop instead from the side as this would be a more natural position. I feel this subtle change helped a lot.
To understand how Charli should look whilst anxious, I watched panic/anxiety attack scenes from Grey’s Anatomy, Iron Man 3 and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Watching these clips helped me understand mouth, shoulder and chest movements whilst hyperventilating, and ways other parts of the body can be affected by anxiety, such as shaking hands.
Falling through window shot:
From the café to the end of the void, Charli will be rendered on 3s to show an increase in anxiety. In the previs, we originally had Charli’s laptop pinging more negative messages. When it came to animating, it was decided that we would cut the laptop and focus on showing these same messages only on the menu. However, the menu was then cut as well. This helped me a lot in some ways as it cut the number of shots I had to animate in half. However, I had to focus on Charli’s body language and emotions more as she ended up being the focus of the scene, rather than the words that surrounded and taunted her.
For the city blockouts, I created the walk cycle first in case we cut the café as Charli would then have to fall into the city street. I ended up doing 2 different walk cycles. At the time of the first walk cycle, Charli was only seen from the back. Therefore, she had no eye movement or facial expressions. A shot was later added in where she was seen from the front, so I added confused yet curious expressions. Once the café blockouts were finished, I did a run out from the left-hand side of the street which focused on her breathing and panic. As the café did not have a set place in the city environment, I chose to have Charli run into frame from the side, showing the lights and the chaos of the city behind her yet hiding the buildings to her left.
While she was walking through the city, I wanted Charli to interact with the signage closely. Alec suggested having lots of signs sitting on the ground so the ones that attacked her did not come form nowhere. This allowed me to have a little freedom in how they attacked her and where from. He also suggested that Charli needed a moment before the signs ambushed her of curiosity. I added a shot where Charli wants to touch the first sign, but it shakes, causing her to coward away from the signs as it reflected her shaking hands from the apartment animations.
During the final animation stages, there were a few cuts and changes to the city scene. The shot containing the silhouettes in the window was moved to before the introduction to the signs. To accommodate this, I changed the run from my blockouts and used my walk cycle to have her notice and interact with the window at a slower pace. Due to city changes late on, I couldn’t have Charli look directly at the window. Instead, I picked a general point to look at without the need for her to stand directly in front the building as the shot after would simply focus on the window before the first sign attack.
I finished the fall animation right after the balcony animations as this was the most complex part of the whole film. Therefore, I wanted to have as much time as possible to finish it to the best of my abilities. In the earlier stages of the blockouts, I received feedback on the parts when gravity caused Charli to let go of the windows that she’s holding on to. To help covey this, I squashed and stretched Charli more and moved her torso to one side to show that gravity is pulling her down. However, due to the stretchy attribute not exporting, I had to alter Charli’s movements slightly. Later improvements from Alec included moving her elbows out during the run cycle as from the top-down angle, her upper body looked stiff compared to her leg strides. The other pieces of feedback only included the positioning of her T-shirt as I found it little difficult to pose due to the constant changes in gravity.
In keeping with the shaking theme in Charli and the signs, I wanted the same movements to be shown from the sketchbook in the void. Throughout the film, sketchbook is a shield that brings her comfort. The shaking would be the thing that helped her realise it was the thing that was fuelling her anxieties and the world that she was stuck in. After the final presentation, much of my blockouts were cut to try and narrow down the meaning of the sketchbook after receiving feedback from Alec, Henry and Mike. I would love to go back to my void animations after submission as I felt very rushed at the point of finishing them. However, I am happy with the starting place I have considering I animated with no previous set camera angles or an updated previs.
The final scene where Charli wakes up back in her apartment is also an area I would like to add to after submission. For the final scene, Charli will be rendered on 1s to hint at a more calming atmosphere. Unfortunately, due to limited time, I had to cut the pickup of the laptop from my blockouts. To combat this, I added roughly 100 frames to her sitting up on her elbows where she would have a moment of calm and realisation that she would be ok, where I focused a little more on her facial expressions. We also intend on having Charli hold her new sketchbook whilst having her sketchbook on display and proud, which was feedback we received.
To make Charli run up the stairs, I used Rachel’s method of creating a walk cycle by moving the main rig control and animating her limbs on a cycle. Instead of simply moving her forward, every cycle Charli would move up and forward 2 steps until she hit the top step.
Final Presentation (Blockouts):
Finished Animations:
Animating with props: