For this project the goal was to create an animation portfolio piece that could be used for a showreel, focusing on the body mechanics, emotion and the 12 principles was a main goal of the project. After doing pre-production, designs for the characters, script, storyboard, some scratch tracks and reference footage it was then onto animating the project. Due to the scope of how the earlier story boards turned out the final project ended up being a portion of the whole and even smaller amount of the whole. However an entire minute out of the 4 has been animated and post-submission more polish will be applied to the animation.
The start of the project began with researching various media that helped find the tone and atmosphere of the project, finding movies, films, comics, and other sources to help figure out the ideas.
The pre-production side, created 2D sketches, drawing and finished pieces to illustrate the character’s design and potential overall design for the project, aimed for cartoony rather than focusing on realistic proportions due to keeping the tone between dark and child friendly.
Once the 2D assets were complete the next was moving onto the 3D model side, were rigging, texturing, re-topolgising was done to ensure the characters and story were ready for the animating that needed to be done.
The early stages of animating involved using the stepped method within Maya to create a 2D style keyframing method that helps plan out how poses will go from A to B, it helps with keeping body language clear without everything constantly moving like with spline and helps pin-point where certain problems might be occurring within the animation. The downside is that its choppy and can give you a false idea of movement and jumping between both spline and stepped might help establish the problems of an animation. The 12 principles are important to also keep in mind, squash and stretch, anticipation,
A big focus of this project was using reference for acting and trying to take what was played out and translate that with the principles to achieve a piece for the portfolio that was good enough to be shown to clients and employers.
Another reason for using references is certain actions are harder to figure out without the use of a visual aid, keeping it in the mind limits the possibilities for how the body moves and can end up with making the movement look too “cartoony” or not grasping the concepts of how the body mechanics work.
Another part of the project was the other parts of filmmaking that were discussed throughout with Mike, investigating the rule of thirds, spacing and staging, the 30 degree rule that even though aren’t the focus of animation are a part of the filmmaking process and animation within that category. These elements will be implemented into later works and hopefully will be made aware of when putting together shots and ideas while making future animation projects.
The reason for the scope restriction allowed the focus of what animation could be done in the time frame. The first 2 were focused on fixing the storyboard and script as they were in the most roughest of states before then onto animating with a previs rather than revising the drawn boards.
The stepped version of the animation hides a lot of the issues spline doesn’t show, having a lot of the movements come off sharper and due to them being on 2s/3s makes it almost seem more animated in areas. However some parts of the animation could of been tweaked, such as the drag/arc of the tail, the placement hips and the walk in general. In hindsight the awkward walking isn’t as apparent so most likely the solution is put it into spline to check and back into stepped to ensure that not too many tweaks would be needed. Timing overall needed more adjusting, the walk was too slow and closer to shuffling rather than a walk also it took up a lot of the time of the animation and not the acting.
This is the final product of the animating, 1 minute of animation. A multitude of areas are rough, the first moments have a lot of “snapping” movement that needed most likely more keys to have it not feel so sharp of a snap. Another Major issue with the spline version is the hips when the rat character is walking, as the flow of his sway seems to slow down almost jolts him around awkwardly, this would need to be reworked and fixed. The walking part of the animation in general could do with a rework as his entire body mechanics feels rough and he does seem like he’s shuffling however if revised this entire section minus him sitting down would be redone. The slight pause at the start too of the walk gives an awkward stutter to the movement when it could be moved in a much smoother direction.
The start however seems to move in a solid fashion, arcs and some squash and stretch with the leg and hips, the movement feelings appropriately snappy, however the rat character’s foot placement makes it awkward how he moves and re-thinking that shot might of been needed for him to cleanly work (with effort, like a struggling older man) would walk. Technical errors throughout cause some of the arms and physical movement to snap or suddenly move and going through and manually adjusting might of been the correct solution in those instances.
Overall there needs more polish than what was given to the scene, fixing up the small errors and adjusting some of the movement even a rework of the walking most likely would be needed. However there are some small but strong character moments, like him looking back at the shovel giving a hint of overly cautious personality. While also being slightly reckless with him throwing the door open. The shark’s brief monologue has limited amount of keys which gives it a slightly floaty look more keys were definitely needed to sharpen up that movement however the character acting itself comes off the way the references intended the slight confusion mixed with sadness. For future reference focusing entirely on that one moment might of been the stronger animating challenge or creating something with rigs already establish to work with animating with little tweaking would of allowed me to focus exclusively on animating.