This year has been very busy for me; time management between family, job, and university work was very challenging. As a beginner in animation, I’ve learned a lot of new skills in using Blender to model and animate. During this learning progress had to face a lot of difficulties, but at the same time really enjoyed completing the work. I feel proud of myself every time I learn new techniques, fix problems, and complete tasks. Working in a team was something that I really didn’t like to do and was afraid of doing because I always felt insecure that not everything was in my control. Which this year I’ve experienced a lot of teamwork; they had advantages and disadvantages. The advantages were that I got to know new people and make new friends. Getting to know them more by working with them. Experiencing working with different types of people helped me with my problem-solving skills, preparing me for my future. The disadvantages were having to be worried and stressed about other people’s speed of completing work because everyone works in different ways. One of the biggest problems that had occurred multiple times during many of the team works this year was lack of communication. I noticed it and it will be something I’ll focus on improving.  Before I started learning 3D animation, I thought it was something I’d never know how to do, so I liked doing more 2D art, but after this whole production and knowledge intake, I think now I like to do more 3D works than 2D.

Many thanks to my classmates and the lecturers for helping and supporting me when I needed help. Within the experience of year 1 hope I’ll do better in year 2. Looking forward to next year.

Before reaching the final stage of “WhoDonut” animation, I had to render my opening scenes of the animation a few times, but I think this is the best version that I have. When I was watch it the coffee cup was moving quicker than I had anticipated in the render of which I wasn’t sure if it looked adequate or natural enough. So, I presented it to Mike; he thought it looked good but provided me some more feedback on the baguette’s walking action, saying he was walking slightly too floaty. To fix it maybe I could make the baguette hops instead of walking flat on the ground. So, I made the baguette hop and increase side-to-side hand movement by I adding more in between key frames.

 

Mike also noticed that we were using too many lighting resources, which resulted in several shadows of the coffee cup and baguette being on the ground. This looked chaotic and out of place. Then he showed me how to use the HDRI environment light to enhance the overall visual without using a lot of light resources. He then demonstrated for me how to use shader notes to adjust the HDRI environment light’s intensity.

Final beginning scene of “WhoDonut”:

Jamayne is in the position of the main editing for “WhoDonut,” which includes putting together all our scenes and adding sound effects and music. I offered to help her in researching soundtracks and effects, as well as to record a few quick sound effects and perform voice acting.

Sound inspiration – Larva

Here some websites that I used to find soundtracks and effects:

• Freesound – Search
• 100,000+ Free Sound Effects for Download – Pixabay
• Angry Sound Effects | Mixkit
• 视频素材_正版8K高清视频素材下载-制片帮素材网

“WhoDonut”

I started modeling my donut character by following a quick online tutorial that showed me how to make a donut in Blender. I also used mesh shapes to manually create the donut. In the end, I decided to go with the hand modelled version since I could make the donut look more adorable with a simple cartoon appearance, however following the tutorial, the donut appeared a little too realistic, more like food than a cartoon character. I asked Mike for advice as well, and he suggested that I should model the donut by hand so it will be easier to correct if I make any mistakes later. 

Donut Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=gO6IHeo4Xg9OM8mQ&v=ZKhfKFcL7tg&feature=youtu.be

Manually made Donut:

I also created two different version of the hands. The hand was one with fingers and one without, I stayed with the one had fingers. I made the hands following Mike’s tutorial the only difference was that I only had three fingers. 

 

   

I did change the arms from using a Bezier which it was a curve but I realize it was hard to control so changed to use cylinders.

In the process of modeling my donut, I tried various methods when it came for creating the appearance of her face. The first method involved creating the eyeballs using two extra sphere meshes after sculpting the face features out of the donut’s body mesh.

  

Using a tutorial that my classmate Hannah recommended was the second method. Following the tutorial, I had to UV map the donut, draw some expressions, and then use image textures to apply the face features to the donut. I believe this method didn’t work as well as the first one because the donut was round, and the UV map’s image texture was pointing in the direction of the vertex faces, which also appeared to be round. The face on the donut looked a little too flat, even though it was still adorable.

2D face feature tutorial: Animating Faces with a 2D Texture in Blender

After trying these two approaches, I went to Rachel to ask for advice on which one I should go with. According to her feedback, the first method made the 3D face appear a little weird because the eyes seemed to be pulled out from the body. To improve the eyes, she recommended that I make separate meshes for the top and bottom eyelids. This would allow me to experiment more with the expressions when I’m rigging the donut. For the mouth, she suggested that I could continue employing the UV mapping method and keeping it 2D, then create a control for the image texture so I would be able to move smoothly between various mouth expressions. I’ve recommended this method of having the eyes 3D and mouth 2D to Jamayne as well because she wasn’t how would she structure the baguette’s face features.

First draft of the mouth expression:

When completed the donut model, I need to rig her. Since I wasn’t sure how to arrange the armature bones on the donut, I had to ask Mike for help. He demonstrated to me the way to make a straight armature for the body in the centre and two separate armatures for the arms at the sides and then joined them together. Other than this problem that I struggled to start, for the rest of rigging I didn’t have too many difficulties by following Mike’s tutorials.

Mike’s demonstration on how to apply armature bones for the donut:

Had to scale the eyelids bigger so it’ll close properly covering the eyeballs.

Final version of the mouth expression:

Had to use this 2D face feature tutorial: Animating Faces with a 2D Texture in Blender  for creating the mouth driver.

I had created the alleyway for the animation. I was able to construct the brick walls more quickly by following a tutorial that I discovered online. Using some reference images, I found online, I also made a garbage bin where the femme lollipop is hiding and the police car that’s going to appear in the beginning scenes. I also followed a tutorial to create the lights on the police car.

Alleyway wall tutorial: http://xhslink.com/a/rvAISVmvCTZbb，复制本条信息，打开【小红书】App查看精彩内容！

Garbage bin:

Police car lights tutorial: http://xhslink.com/a/5nh343Wgti0bb，复制本条信息，打开【小红书】App查看精彩内容！

With the 3D pre-vis, characters, and props set up, we began working on the completed animation. The pre-vis was roughly one minute and five seconds long. We separated it into four sections. I chose to do the opening sequences, for 1-18 seconds, which included city panning shots until the police officers arrived at the murder scene. Jamayne is doing the next part, about 19-31 seconds of the police officers tasting the donut jam and confirming it is either strawberry jam or raspberry jam, starting the argument. Followed by Jack, 32-44 seconds of the two police officers growing angrier and closer to each other, then suddenly the donut wakes up alive. Last, Aster is doing ending scenes of about 45-65 seconds of the donut, and the officers frighten one another by fainting and eventually collapsing to the ground. After the femme lollipop, the murderer comes out of the garbage bin and runs away. 

Jamayne’s final 3Dpre-vis: 

We had some character issues while developing the animation, and we had to go back and correct the mistake after everything was key-framed. This was frustrating and stressful for me and my teammates. I eventually discovered at the very end that I had a couple extra IK controllers that I didn’t need, which was the reason my donut couldn’t move naturally and smoothly with the arms. Jamayne experienced the same issue but was able to resolve it earlier when rigging her character, so she knew how to fix it and helped me in fixing it. Another problem was that I was unable to move the femme lollipop properly and had to ask Aster for help fixing it. However, I ended up removing the character from my scene because the scene only required the tiny rapper of her clothing, not the whole femme lollipop character, so I had to create a new, basic shape to perform as the hint. After our third presentation, Jamayne and I received feedback on how to improve the first draft of our animation section. Feedback for my section included making the donut fall to the ground rather than already lying there and giving the coffee cup and baguette more movement as they walk to the donut in the alleyway to enhance their performance more engaging.

The hint rapper of Femme lollipop: 

First draft of the beginning scene: 

In addition dealing with these problems, I also needed to complete the city environments for the beginning scene of the animation. Which I duplicated Jamayne’s store and applied the windows and doors to plain cuboids to mimic simple buildings. To add more atmosphere, I also decorated the city with streetlamp poles and trees that Aster had created. Aster also helped me in creating more buildings, but I decided not to use them since I felt they were too realistic in comparison to my own buildings, which seemed a little strange to put together. 

Rendered beginning scenes after completing the environment:

I used Bezier to create the “WhoDonut” title in the second shot of my sequence, and then I converted them to mesh. Before making it, I sketched a design which I want to make it look like donut experimenting using some of the technique in the tutorial of how to make donuts which it didn’t work so just kept plain letters with the fade-in effect. To do this, I also followed a tutorial that used notes on the colour textures to show me how to add a fade-in effect.

Donut Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=gO6IHeo4Xg9OM8mQ&v=ZKhfKFcL7tg&feature=youtu.be

Fade-in tutorial for the title: http://xhslink.com/a/GUuQNPrJtTZbb，复制本条信息，打开【小红书】App查看精彩内容！

To make the jam of the donut, I employed the same technique again in the making donut tutorial, for this technique I’ve experimented couple of times find the best shape of jam that I want. Then I followed another tutorial of apply colour textures to make it look more like a realistic jam.

Donut Tutorial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=gO6IHeo4Xg9OM8mQ&v=ZKhfKFcL7tg&feature=youtu.be The same the method was employed to make the jam blood.

Colour texture for the jam blood tutorial: http://xhslink.com/a/yndVJM1BzTZbb，复制本条信息，打开【小红书】App查看精彩内容！

We were required to make a short animation for the assignment that focused on food and had a timeframe of one minute to one minute and thirty seconds. We were required to divide into groups of four. Aster, Jack, Jamayne, and I were members of group 4. We begin this project by generating as many ideas as we can in a spider diagram on a whiteboard before starting the animation. I’ve considered a few different ideas.

Inspiration & Research

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 
• The Heist
• Wreck-It Ralph
• Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space
• Turning Red 
• Bao
• Cuphead

The first was a production line where each character plays a part in how they make the food by putting together components of themselves onto the food that’s passing on the machine, and in the end, the food will be made from the characters. These videos had helped me inspiring this concept: 

• https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDzLt8xyunu/?igsh=MTU4YjNjeW9tMGNpbA==
• https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEWWTowyMhC/?igsh=M3pyMmNkb2sxbTkx
• http://xhslink.com/a/sLsG199Y8IYbb，复制本条信息，打开【小红书】App查看精彩内容！
• http://xhslink.com/a/H5iRn27y3JYbb，复制本条信息，打开【小红书】App查看精彩内容！
• http://xhslink.com/a/OC764HuudKYbb，复制本条信息，打开【小红书】App查看精彩内容！

My second idea was bakery steps, which included baking a cake, combining cream with various mixer machine characters, baking the cake dough in an oven, and then adding various fruits to the cake. The finished product would be a delicious and stylish cake. I thought of this concept by watching the video:

• http://xhslink.com/a/zrlHzgKDzVZbb，复制本条信息，打开【小红书】App查看精彩内容

The third concept was a Candyland-style vision in which the characters, the environment, and the props were all made of food and candy. The style would be incredibly adorable and princessy, with pastel colours and bright hues used throughout.

Jamayne, Jack, and Aster also had some amazing ideas. At the end, we had to simplify the concepts into four, one from each of us. According to Aster’s concept, the food that was engaging in the beach activities suddenly gets picked up by seagulls. According to Jamayne’s concept, a honey bear attempts to extract honey from the honeycomb, gets assaulted by bees, and humorous incidents occur throughout the pursuit. Jack came up with the idea of a fake crime scene in which a donut had been murdered, two police officers were investigating the case, and there was an argument. My concept was more equivalent to a setting style, with a vision of creating a food environment like my thoughts of Candyland, complete with chocolate grounds, biscuit tables, chairs, cookie doors, gingerbread buildings, and lollipop poles.

Alec and Lauren stopped by to offer some advice throughout our discussions, which helped us decide. Finally, we chose to go with Jack’s concept for the donut’s fake crime scene, which Lauren saw the donut been murdered was “Whodunnit,” and recommended that we call this animation “WhoDonut.” Jack also created a log line for “WhoDonut” was “In a dark alleyway, a baguette detective and coffee cup partner investigate the shocking murder of a jam donut, only to discover that the killer is still lurking nearby, hiding in plain sight.”

Following our decision of “WhoDonut” as the animation’s main story, each one of us created a storyboard for the narrative. The narrative was the “crime” of the donut being murdered. During the investigation, two police officers, the coffee cup, and a baguette started an argument about the jam flavour. Is it strawberry jam or raspberry jam? When they’re arguing, the donut wakes up and looks at the police officers, then the officers look back at the donut. They’re shocked; the donut gets scared of the policemen, and the police officers get scared of why the donut is still alive. They all faints and fall to the ground. The murder femme lollipop was still hiding near the crime scene, walked out from the trash bin, and escaped away. We also decided to start the animation with a panning scene of the city, and then the crime is going to happen in an alleyway. After the completion of my version of the animation’s storyboard, I also drew some sketches of the four characters’ designs. providing my team members with concepts for character designs and increasing the variety of character possibilities for design. We had our first presentation feedback which was Alec recommended that the baguette should not have arms while also requesting that we should speed the progression on finalising the storyboard and character designs.

Inspiration of  donut:

Inspiration of coffee cup and baguette:

Inspiration of femme lollipop:

Here is some environment inspiration. (City and Alleyway)

 

The final storyboard was a combination of Aster’s, Jamayne and my sketches. Each of us was required to produce a 3D pre-vis after completing our storyboards for “Who-Donut,” using the storyboard as a guide. When I completed my 3D pre-vis, I realized that I had made a mistake since I had struggled to move the rough blocks of the characters because I had forgotten to parent the shapes together, resulting having to keyframe each one of the shapes individually. However, the arm blocks did look like they were floating in the air during the movement. The final decision of the 3D pre-vis was we’ve decided to use Jamayne’s 3D pre-vis to present in our second presentation. The feedback we got from Rachel and Alec was to cut out some unnecessary shots, switch up the speeds of different shots, introduce the murder character a bit more by adding a hint in the beginning scenes, and remove the warning tapes so the crime just freshly happens instead of already having occurred. To create our final pre-vis as the template when we begin animating, Jamayne made any required changes to her first draft 3D pre-vis based on this feedback. 

My 3D pre-vis:

Jamayne’s 3D pre-vis:

After that, we decided which characters each of us wanted to model. Aster picked the lollipop, Jack is creating the coffee cup, Jamayne wanted to model the baguette, and I picked the donut. I decided on her final design after resketching my donut’s design. I then began to model her.