A CV is a vital piece of industry material that we must show to future employers. They provide necessary information about the experience a person has, and what they can provide for the job application. I will create a new CV to present myself and my skills in the form of an animation based job role.
I stated by finding inspiration for tailoring my CV and designing my CV. I mostly looked through the CV examples provided to us on blackboard. They were great to take inspiration from and to figure out a specific job role for my CV, as they had made before, for example 3D modeller, 2D animator, or generalist.
One example I liked was by Chloe Hughes. Chloe presented her CV in a clear and neat way with a pink colour scheme. I was interested in how she used software logos to represent what software she has experience with. Her CV is stylised around becoming a 3D artist, as she states her skills and roles within her projects. She also includes her experience and qualifications which enhance her professionalism and skills. I also like the layout of this CV, and how she designed her unique logo. It brings out a visual personality and makes her material well known for its look.
One more example I liked was by Rebecca Blair. Rebecca has a creative and cute looking CV with an effective layout design. In this CV and in Chloe’s as well, It is effective to add the longer parts of information in the middle of the CV and the smaller parts of information on one side or another of the CV. They both achieve this very well. Rebecca has a charming logo of a character waving outside its frame – it makes for a creative look. The duties that Rebecca lists on each of her work experience roles is informative and professional – it lets the employer understand what their role entailed, and what skills they learnt. Lastly, the list of soft skills enhances their presentation, as employers would want to find out if they contain those skills.
I started writing up my CV content on a document first of all, so I could gather all the information I need and see which would be suitable to add. I had an older version of a CV from college that also helped in adding in my information – like my work experience, and my school attendance.
I visited the color.adobe.com website to find a suitable colour palette for my CV design. I associate my style with the colour purple, so I was hoping to add a few purple tones to the piece. I found these two settings above that inspired my progress with the palette I settled with. I mostly stuck to the template of the first palette, but later changed the colours around to more purple tones.
After I picked out my colours, I used one of the colours to help me design logos for software that I use. This included logos for Clip studio paint, Blender, Photoshop, After effects, Autodesk Maya, and Substance Painter. I used a painty brush on photoshop and drew out the logo of each software. I will present these on my CV to show that I have experience in the software.
Next, I brought in my portrait illustration that I use on media accounts as my profile picture. I can use this to show how I look, but also my illustration style.
I experimented with a few font styles and combinations to see what I liked best. I downloaded a few new fonts from the web and tried them all out on a photoshop file.
Once I picked my fonts (that change later on) I added a few coloured rectangles from the colour palette I made. I made subtitle squares and titles for each topic that will be shown on my CV
I used the grid feature on photoshop to accurately align everything on the page to a suitable position.
This is my first draft of my CV. I had added my content into the CV in a suitable place, and my software logos at the bottom. There were still a few parts I needed to add such as the link to my showreel, adjustments to my profile paragraph, and more information for my experience.
In my second draft of my CV, I adjusted the profile paragraph so it works a little better. I added my job roles from the work experience I have, so its more clear what skills I learnt and how I took on my jobs. I also adjusted the text in the CV to containing more textboxes, rather than singular text layers. This helped to align each text in a better position e.g. In the ares soft / technical skills, each of the words were separate beforehand, but now they are all in a textbox.
This was the version I had shown my tutor in my tutorial. He suggested I could push to the right the job roles bullet points, as it is cluttered in this version, and hard to read. I also was encouraged to add my portrait illustration at the top left of the CV to add a bit of personality and personal touch.
Lastly, this is my final version of my CV. I added my portrait illustration at the top, added my showreel link as it was finally finished and posted, and right aligned the job roles. In addition I also adjusted the colours of the boarder as I thought before hand they were too dark for the CV. Now I believe everything works well in the CV and it accurately highlights my skills, what I have done and what I can offer.
On week 7 of this term we got into campus to learn more about the industry material we should make for future job roles. Today we learned about cover letters, communication in emails, and portfolio / showreel design.
A Cover letter is a small, page long document that complements your CV. It does into more detail about who you are, why you are applying for a job, and what you can offer to this job. It provides the employer with some more details about you and shows your professionalism.
We focused on the structure of a cover letter, what contents go into a cover letter, how to research and talk about the job were applying for in the cover letter, and other details about ourselves and why we are applying for the job. These are:
Section 1: Explain why you are applying, what position, and if you have heard of the studio before
Section 2: What do you have to offer? Explain specific qualifications they require
Section 3: Thank the employer for considering you, and mention you are looking forward to hearing back from them
Don’t use superlatives to describe yourself – can sound too unrealistic
Be specific with your skills & qualities
Be positive
Don’t over design your document – a simple aligned document works
Be truthful in your letter
Do not copy everything from your CV, add more detail
An example of a suitable cover letter from the website Prospects.ac.uk
Later on we touched on emailing an employer. Emailing is an efficient way to contact employers and services and communicate. We focused on how to address the receiver, again the structure of an email, what contents to say and how to address it.
research the company or hiring manager you are contacting
If no information can be found, address them by ‘Dear Hiring Manager’
be professional – use a work email account
Follow instructions on advertised job, specify the subject you are addressing
Always customise your email for different employers – never copy and paste
Link your industry materials, and let them know you have attached them
proofread
An example of emailing your employer from the website thebalancecareers.com
Our next topic was about portfolio design and what to include for specific job applications. There are some points to remember for building a portfolio, these are:
present your art first – should be what a client/employer sees first
only include your best ‘Quality over Quantity’
Focus your portfolio to the job you’re applying for – eg. show 2D animation for a 2D animation job.
include practicality of our work – apply correct structure in your work that would work in a real project
Think about your role in the pipeline – think of the roles before and after your job role – make sure they work for everyone – you work as a team
Make portfolio easy to navigate – simple buttons and limited pages. – more clicks – more problems
Include work in progress pieces, only if the project is finished
keep portfolio up to date
provide contact info
An example of a portfolio website – our tutors portfolio
Source:
http://aodhanmcnicholl.com
Lastly we touched on showreels and how to present them/make them stand out well. There are points to remember for making a showreel, these are:
To bookend your showreel – show name, contact info, role
best work at the start and end
short and sweet – between 30 seconds to 1-2 minutes
edit to (copyright free) music to work on a beat – more catchy and entertaining
trim the fat, only show what you need to
focus your showreel based on the job role you’re applying for etc, present character animation for a character animation job
test audience – show it to family / friends / other artists
credit each of your shots – make them known
Example of a suitable showreel – our tutors showreel
The 7th week of this term – 1st week of this assignment, we were introduced to the Animation cycle/mechanics project. In this assignment we are to animate three scenes. A walk cycle, a run cycle, and a form of physical motion (body mechanics). We are to plan, research and peer assess/critque/help classmates. We will consider exploring our abilities in either 2D or 3D, explore different characteristics/personalities in these cycles. We are to gather video/image reference of ourselves/online/or friends/relatives, to thumbnail our sequences before we animate, and apply our knowledge of animation principles to our work. By the end of this project I hope to produce an animation for each of the cycles, with unique and experimental characteristics and style in the animations.
This Mondays class we got a talk with Sorcha McGlinchey (Sorchacartoons on social media) as she introduced us to 2D Animation and animating on After Effects. She went through with us the basics of setting up an after effects scene for an animation, and the controls to make a shape move.
In the end of her class we all had produced an animation of a walking character. Here is my attempt below.
In the afternoon Alec introduced us once more to the mechanics and posing of characters in 3D animation. He went through the importance of reference and the mechanics of the example rig he provided. We worked on posing two rigs at the same time. My work is below.
These two tasks ultimately helped me decide which form of animation to go for. I was very interested to try out 2D animation through After Effects again and learn new things about it, so I chose 2D Animation.
Here I will be documenting about my progress to animate a body mechanic with fundamental principles for each of the cycles, and with unique and experimental characteristics and style in the animations.
To start my brainstorming and organizing for each animation, I used Miro Board. I decided I wanted to use a video of a friend/relative to help me reference the body mechanic animation, and I set down my idea of a character skateboarding. (info in green)
I did brainstorm and think about casual, physical motions that we would do. I thought of building a snowman – like lifting the head of the snowman onto the body, or cleaning a room – reaching a high place, riding a skateboard and riding a scooter.
My sister agreed to help me out with video reference as I try out these ideas.
We filmed a few takes of some of these ideas and we decided the skateboarding idea was the best out of them all. My sister has experience with skating and owns her own skateboard, so we were able to film these shots pretty easily. She helped me out with tricks ideas she could do which enhanced my original idea.
I got a shot of her doing a trick and a shot of her skating out of frame. Here are the videos below:
I also thought it would be very helpful for me to combine these videos so I could view both of the body mechanics at the same time. I used Premiere Pro to put these videos together. I made sure the the first video lined up with the second by adjusting the size/shape of the video – I lined up the last position on the first video, to the first position of the second video. Here it is below:
I also tried collecting other pieces of reference to help me perfect this body mechanic. I researched for more skateboarding videos that I could study the body movements & the skateboard positioning.
This was one of many videos I looked at that more or less replicated the trick that my sister did in my reference video. I combined the clips from the “older school kick flip” trick – this helps me picture how the skateboard is positioned as it flips, and how a persons body anticipates the jump and lands.
In addition to this motion reference, I was also looking for style/animation inspiration. I was very inspired by Sorcha McGlinchey’s class with us where she used Photoshop/Illustrator/After Effects to create 2D animation. I’d like to produce my animations in this way.
I also took inspiration from this advert series for the ‘Dove Self-Esteem Project’ based on the show ‘Steven Universe’. They have this shape-layer-rigging style in the animation that I could take inspiration/reference from. It is filled with beautiful colours/lighting and showcases many different shapes. Below is one of the videos that I enjoy, and I also found a short Behind the scenes video about the project.
In this behind the scenes video you could get a glimpse of how the project was made though the screens of the creators/artists. They show their blocking out/line-art stage, their storyboard/animatic stage, and their painted concept pieces. Seeing these parts of the project help me understand their process and how familiar these steps are to me already – that I could achieve them for my project too.
This short animation called Kaeru, made by students from the San Jose State University, is also a nice visual inspiration. From the variety of analogous colour palettes, to the subtle textured look that gives the story more life and realness. They also portray strong emotions such as self doubt, rage and joy.
I also looked for more in depth tutorials on After Effects so I could refresh myself for using After effects, and learn some new tricks.
This After effects animation tutorial has a little bit of a different approach to what I know of, as they make all their layered shapes on after effects directly instead of importing them from photoshop. This is still quite an informative video as it provides options in After Effects I didn’t know about before, such as the ‘Set Matte’ tool – to clip one shape layer onto another shape layer, and the ‘parenting’ tool – to make shape layers follow another shape layer when positioned.
This approach is also really good to know because in my body mechanics move, the characters body may turn slightly to the right to go from the trick to the skate away. This video helps me to understand how I could try to achieve that action.
At this point, after gathering my reference, I am ready to start the body mechanics animation. I will start by thumb-nailing my main key poses.
I used Adobe Photoshops video sequence timeline tool to complete this thumbnail sequence. I drew in a rough character model and drew out the main key frames that I picked up from the video reference I made.
To help me point these out, I made a collage of the key poses in a picture, one for the trick, and one for the skating away.
I can see in both sequences of images that there are hints of anticipation – bending of body & knees, and squash & stretch – in the jump and skate. The use of these animation principles will help to enhance my body mechanic animation.
These still images were really helpful in posing the character in the way I hoped for. This was a similar process that our tutor Alec taught us – how he prepared his reference in the jump animation tutorial.
Source
Blackboard -Jump Animation – Blocking to Spline Video Tutorial – 01 – Jump – Blocking – Start.mp4
Here I had my reference on the side as I drew in my poses in the animation timeline. I placed a layer for each pose and timed them at one frame long to start with.
I then used the video I edited together to figure out a rough timing set up. I made selected layers longer or shorter depending on how slow or fast an action occurs.
After a few adjustments I finished off the first, rough thumbnails of my body mechanics animation:
I am quite happy with the poses in this mechanic. It definitely looks like a skateboard trick so I know it translates well, and it will help for the animating stage later on.
Next, I want to design my character and background in preparation for the storyboard, and for the final scene buildup.
I gathered reference from Pinterest to find images of a casual skating girl. These will help me design my character, inspire new ideas, and pick my colour scheme.
I was inspired by the art style look of the Steven universe x Dove videos, and combined my style, and theirs to make this. I think this style is very appealing, and it will also help during my rig/animating stage with its line-less look.
I made some first initial sketches, and then designed my body mechanics character below. I illustrated a standing pose to highlight each aspect of the design, and also positioned them in one of the poses I collected previously, to see how it would work. I like the accessories on this character and how the outfit is quite easy to draw.
From my brainstorm beforehand, I had a visual of what setting I wanted to achieve for the scene. I wanted to capture the darkish fall evenings in a quiet neighbourhood. I found some reference images to the right that help visualise this for me.
With these reference images, I picked out the main pieces of each setting that I wanted to capture etc. the brick wall with bushes, the small houses, the rough footpath. I also used these images to pick out my colours as I thought they fit well. The preview of the background with my character, is below. This was quite fun to draw especially creating the leaves, and adding the textured look.
Right after my design process, I started capturing how the scene will play out in a storyboard. I added a rough sketch of the designed character, and a rough sketch of the background. I also added descriptions on each shot to explain what will happen, and what reaction I want to capture from them.
Soon enough, I started building the character rig on Photoshop. I drew out the character model, each part of the body in separate layers. I made two rigs, One facing the front, and one turned to the right. This is because the character will be positioned in two poses throughout the scene. I added sphere shapes around the body where the joints are, or where the skeleton pins will be within the rigging stage.
This scene also contains a major prop. I designed a skateboard in photoshop in three different poses: the back, side and top of the skateboard.
Once this rig was finished, I was ready to bring my work into After effects. I brought over my background, the thumbnail walk cycle to reference from, the skateboard, and the character rig/layers.
Again to start rigging the character, I set up the DUIK skeleton on both versions of the characters. I went through the same process as the other animations when setting up DUIK, which was: pinning each skeleton part to the body, parenting the parts to the skeletons, auto-rigged these skeletons and assorted the controls.
I made sure to continuously refer back to my reference images and videos to accurately capture the poses and positions I was aiming for. I especially needed reference for this animation as it is quite difficult to predict this uncommon kind of body mechanic.
I started animating the limbs and skeletons of the rig to make the body mechanic. My first draft is below:
In this first draft I was focusing on the first rig of the character first. I make blockout poses of the jump, and also the flip of the skateboard. It looks quite slow and floaty as the moment, however more concentration to the positions will help the visual.
Draft 2:
In my second draft I worked on the jump again, focusing on the impact, and lifting from the ground. I also took time to align what parts of the body were moving out of place, and figuring a way to position them. The landing looks off at the moment, and the jump overall is quite stiff. I will soon look within the graph editor to clean up and smooth the motion.
Draft 3:
On my third draft I focused on starting the second rig of the character, looking to the side that will skate off frame. I referred back to my references to capture the pose in this second part, however it is still at a rough blocking stage.
To be able to find ways to improve my work, I asked my peer for feedback on my animations. Although an early draft was shown of this animation, they still could see what it will become, but suggested to keep focusing on the timing/pace of the scene, as it will be important. I appreciate another person viewing my work for a different perspective and thought about the visual. This will help me improve what I couldn’t see.
Draft 4:
Here I was making progress with the graph editor. I took some time to work on the first motion again to detail its values and speed. It does need some more work later on. I added a closed eye illustration to give the idea the character is blinking, which gives it more life.
Draft 5:
I made much more progress with this draft. I made details with the animation of the skateboard: I had taken out one layer that was not needed, I adjusted the scale to make the skateboard look like its lying on the feet and spinning, and rotated it the same way it was in the reference. I made more progress with the positions on the first rig, after looking more into my reference for extra help in finalising it. I still need more progress on the second rig of the character, and a little more progress on the jump – as it still looks floaty in my opinion.
Draft 6:
Here I started on the transition from the first rig to the second, and working on details of the second rig movements. The transition looks quite quick right now, but I made some more progress with the video below.
I focused a lot on altering the positions and movements of each rig to better finalise them. The jump now looks less floaty this time, and the landing works well. I also changed the position of the arms in the second rig, as before hand the left arm looked out of place. I was mostly adjusting the neck and head around this time as I had trouble with its position – the neck would slip down too far down the torso during the jump. I continue to fix this with this next part below.
The jump works a lot better now with the detail adjustments, and work on the graph editor. I also slowed down the transition between the rigs just a slight touch.
Draft 7:
In this draft I started working on animating the second rig and skateboard moving off to the right of the scene. Right now it looks a bit slow and does not fit with the impact of the skate of the leg. I could try editing the graph on the skate so that it could go a touch faster. I am also not sure about how the legs move as the first rig lands from the jump. It slightly snaps up then down, making it look like it shakes. I was not sure where or how this was animated, but I will look into this next.
Draft 8:
In this draft I took time to view each movement I thought looked off, e.g. the shaking legs, and finally polish/finishing them up. I found the source of how the legs were shaking and I redid the keyframes in a simpler way.
I used the graph editor to edit the path of the second rig/skateboard skating out of frame. I was able to achieve a nicer ease in / ease out look. The speed works well too. (Image on the left: screenshot of the graph editor path for the skate)
I animated the hands rotating based on the impact of the jump, and I sped up the jump overall. I am happy with the outcome of this draft and feel as though the animation is just about done.
Now that I finished the animation, I brought the final video into Premiere pro to create a looped video and add sound.
I gathered some sounds to suit the scene. I cropped skateboard sounds from my main video reference with my sister, into a sound effect. I also made use of a copyright free neighbourhood ambience sound effect.
I uploaded my video and these sounds onto a Premiere Pro file.
I duplicated my video four times to make a longer video of the animation play in loop.
I also cropped and cut the skateboard sounds apart to fit with when the skateboard flips, and when the character lands on the skateboard. I added the neighbourhood ambience sound below it.
After this the edited version of my animation was done, and overall the body mechanics animation was complete. Here it is below:
I am very happy with the outcome of this body mechanic. It definitely was the more difficult animation to complete out of all the cycles, but it was a challenge I had fun tackling. I like the environment and how the motions came together, I feel as though I did great in recreating the motion of skating on a skateboard. However I could have improved in the timing of the jump/the jump motion in general. I feel like I could have studied more on how to accurately replicate a jump. Other than this I am happy with the result.
Here I will be documenting about my progress to animate a run cycle with fundamental principles for each of the cycles, and with unique and experimental characteristics and style in the animations.
I used Miro Board to help me brainstorm and organise how I will plan and what I can do for my run cycle. It took me a while to think of an idea for the run cycle, however I found inspiration and sparked an idea from a video I watched shown below. (run cycle info in pink)
I will go for a nice wholesome reaction we may all get when our favourite song comes on – when we become a lot happier and gain a lot of energy. I will animate the character running, possibly holding a phone with earphones on, and bopping along to a song.
I decided to look for online reference for this cycle. For my run cycle, I wanted to aim for a fun and entertaining action& character personality. The video below called ‘Weird running styles’ really inspired my idea from the one example of running in the video. I clipped it just below the full video. I believe I could use this lively and bouncy run as reference.
Full video:
Clipped version:
I will also make use of this simple run cycle reference to help me with creating my key poses and making sure the cycle flows well.
Again I would like to produce my animation in the same way as Sorcha McGlinchey’s class with us where she used Photoshop/Illustrator/After Effects to create 2D animation.
And also, the advert series of the ‘Dove Self-esteem project’ and ‘Steven Universe’ is one of my animation/visual inspirations for each of my cycle/motion animations. Here is another video from the same project which I enjoy.
This short animation called Kaeru, made by students from the San Jose State University, is also a nice visual inspiration. From the variety of analogous colour palettes, to the subtle textured look that gives the story more life and realness. They also portray strong emotions such as self doubt, rage and joy.
I am ready to start the body mechanics animation. I will start by thumb-nailing my main key poses.
First of all I was preparing what key poses I am looking for in this run cycle, I screenshotted and combined the parts of the main reference video I am using, that would fit.
I also had an image of the run timing chart in the book ‘The Animators Survival Kit’ in view to remind myself of the cycles key positions – such as contact, down, pass pos/ etc.
I labelled each pose so I would know which order they would go, and how they flow together.
In the video, and in these images too, I notice the man’s arms stay in the same position as they hold onto to the phone. He also bops his head more noticeably and vigorously as he reacts to the music being played. These are aspects of this body mechanic that I could implement to my run cycle to capture this same emotion.
I drew in these key frames and copy and pasted them them around two times to get a good loop. I drew the frames all in one spot so I made adjustments wherever I needed to make the cycle run on the one spot – etc. lining up the feet.
To distinguish the front and back legs/arms I used a different colour to colour in the other leg/arm. This helped to figure out when each leg takes a turn to step forward so I could loop it correctly. I made adjustments where needed – such as redoing the upper legs, as they moved to irregular places from the body beforehand.
This is the rough thumbnail for the run cycle:
I like how the feet are positioned and the use of the key poses flow well, however the body position is too jittery (moves about too much). I know for next time to focus on the body and line the frames up closer to each other.
My tutor gave me some feedback for this thumbnails, that I should focus on how the body of the character moves. I should make sure the body only moves up and down, and not left to right. This makes for unrealistic movement and looks jittery on screen. I redid the thumbnail with this information in mind:
I redid the body and arms to give it more of a running look and structured mechanic. I still went for the look of the head bopping up and down to a song so I hope this could translate well during the animating stage.
Next, I want to design my character and background in preparation for the storyboard, and for the final scene buildup.
I gathered reference from Pinterest to find images of a sporty girl going for a run. These will help me design my character, inspire new ideas, and pick my colour scheme.
I made some first initial sketches, and designed my run cycle character below. I illustrated a standing pose to highlight each aspect of the design, and also positioned them in a running position. I admire the face of this character and how she suits the joyful tone of this run cycle scene.
I couldn’t think of a solid idea for the setting of the run cycle at first, but later on, when designing my character, I finally thought of a visual for the scene. I wanted to go for a city garden/park in a sunny, bright day. I found some reference images to the right that help visualise this for me.
With these reference images, I picked out the main pieces of each setting that I wanted to capture etc. The clear blue sky, the fence with water behind, the fall colour leaves on the ground . I also used these images to pick out my colours. The preview of the background with my character, is below. This was a change from the other backgrounds, but was fun to create. I love the vibrant colours and the look of the trees.
After my design process, I started capturing how the scene will play out in a storyboard. I added a rough sketch of the designed character, and a rough sketch of the background. I also added descriptions on each shot to explain what will happen, and what reaction I want to capture from them.
I used my character design page as reference to make the character rig on photoshop. I placed down two guides to position where the feet are, for the right to be closer to the foreground than the left. I added sphere shapes around the body where the joints are, or where the skeleton pins will be within the rigging stage.
Once this rig was finished, I was ready to bring my work into After effects. I brought over my background, with the gate, leaves, clouds layers separate, the thumbnail walk cycle to reference from, and the character rig/layers.
To start rigging my character, I set up the DUIK tool to add a skeleton to the body.
While I was working with DUIK, I set up a new workspace that would help me use each control I needed in a clear format. I had the DUIK skeleton controls to the left, the timeline, the Duik menu and the character rig.
I also noticed while I was animating the limbs of the rig, a path was created where the rig is. This help for when I wanted to adjust the movement of the legs after I had set down the keyframes. This would also help me later on with the graph editor.
Draft 1:
My first draft consisted of blocking out where the legs and arms will move, using my reference and notes beforehand. The run is very slow right now but I plan to fix it later on. The shape of the hips is quite strange so I will try out some ideas, to see what I can do to fix it.
Draft 2:
In draft two, the pace is much better and works well. The arms and legs move in sync too much, I will try to offset their movements. The head moving left to right doesn’t look right as the hair behind doesn’t follow it.
Draft 3:
In this draft I made a lot of progress. I created a shape layer, in the same colour as the hips, that filled in the irregular space. I added a phone to her hand which adds to the idea she will be listening to music. I am considering adding a pair of headphones to add to this idea. I also animated the background moving which makes it looks like she’s running faster. Next I would like to work on the head movements, and add more details where I can.
Draft 4:
In this draft I added the headphones that I thought about last draft. I worked on the foreground again, mostly on the leaves, to give the idea the girl is running. The background moving last time didn’t work as well as I hoped, as I am looking to loop the video. However this time round it may work out well. Next I will work with the graph editor and graph out the motion of the character.
Adding the extra props to the character, like the phone and headphones, were actually quite simple to do. There were two different ways I would align the props to the character in a simple way.
For the headphones, they would be sitting on the head of the character. The head is set in a pre-comp, as there are multiple parts of the head to combine together. I placed the headphones in the pre-comp, and they were able to move in time with the head successfully. In here I also added the blink. I worked with opacity to turn on the closed eye, and turn off the open eye – and vice versa to create the look of the blink.
For the phone, I added it to the main composition for the character, just underneath the right hand. I parented the phone to the right hand control, and the phone successfully moved along with the arm, with the hand holding onto it.
Draft 5:
On my fifth draft I made a lot of progress with the graph editor. The motion is a lot smoother and clean: I fixed the head bop this time, and added the blink idea. However I had trouble with the arms. I noticed when rotating the head, the arms were parented to the head. They did not work like this as the arms would rotate along with the head, so I detached them. I need to figure out a different way to avoid the offset of the shoulders from the torso. In addition, I may revisit the legs again as they snap a little too much.
To be able to find ways to improve my work, I asked my peer for feedback on my animations. They liked the animation and pointed out the knees/legs look stiff as they move in the run cycle. I appreciate another person viewing my work for a different perspective and thought about the visual. This will help me improve what I couldn’t see.
Draft 6:
Here I took note of what my peer said, and retouched on the legs and also repositioned them – this makes them look more like a run than before. I also fixed the arms by animating on the layer of the shoulder/arm layer. I was able to keyframe the position along with the chest, and it works very well.
Draft 7:
In this draft I was polishing up the animations in each of the layers. I mostly touched on the torso moving up and down, and the head bopping more. I am happy with how this is looking. I may look for a motion effect idea I could add to the animation if I have time, to strengthen the scene.
Draft 8:
In this draft I was focused on trying out a motion effect in the scene that emphasises that the character is listening to loud, upbeat music. It was quite difficult to get an effective animation of it. I like the effect, but I am still deciding if I should try a different approach at this time. In addition, I worked on the foot rotations as it makes contact with the ground. I noticed they would jitter a bit as they land. I tried to fix this up as much as I could. After these adjustments I was happy with the result of the animation.
Once I was finished my animation, I brought the final video into Premiere pro, to create a looped video, and add sound.
I gathered these sounds to suit the scene. I downloaded a song I thought would fit the idea that the character would be happy and surprised that it started playing. I also used a copyright free city park ambience sound effect.
I uploaded my video and these sounds onto a Premiere Pro file.
Here I had duplicated my video four times to get a long looped video of my animation. The transition from one to the other works very well. I added the song, and the park ambience to the timeline.
I wanted the song to have an audio effect that it was coming from headphones – so quiet and muffled. I added a highpass filter that remove low-frequency from an audio – which makes It static and quiet. I also added a graphic equaliser to adjust the settings of frequencies to what I thought sounded right.
After this the edited version of my animation was done, and overall the run cycle animation was complete. Here it is below:
I am happy with the outcome of my run cycle. It was a lot easier to complete out of all the cycles however it contained some challenges along the way. I like the colours in this environment and how the actual run came out – I tried my best to resemble a run in the visual I was thinking of. However I could have improved in the leg structure and animation. I feel like the legs were illustrated too small which caused a few problems for me later on e.g. when the legs make contact with the ground, sometimes the feet could not reach the guide line. If I took more time to design this character that would avoid this problem it would be more effective. Other than this I am happy with the result.
Here I will be documenting about my progress to animate a walk cycle with fundamental principles for each of the cycles, and with unique and experimental characteristics and style in the animations.
I used Miro Board to help me brainstorm and organise how I will plan and what I can do for my walk cycle. I had an idea for the walk cycle even before this assignment started. I knew I wanted to showcase my original character in a whimsical, but spooky scene based on the story I made for it. (info in blue)
I had pictured making a walk cycle based on this art piece I made some time ago. I wanted to capture this characters personality in this work.
She is a tired, young woman trying to start a new life, but ends up in a town cursed by nightmares. She is almost numb to the world, so she would walk slumpy and would be unbothered by her spooky surroundings.
For this cycle I will record myself to try capture the same slump, tired walk I am thinking of in my head, and see if it will translate in real life.
I tried to capture a subtle drowsy, slumpy walk but I couldn’t exactly translate it into my walk. As backup, I will gather a few more videos online of this similar kind of walk so I could have more to study and reference later on.
The two videos below are quite average walks that I could take reference from. They are slow, delicate walks that I could reference and enhance to the feeling I am looking for.
From this video I clipped the three reference walks that I think would be most useful for the walk Im aiming for. They consist of slow, sleepy, and flimsy walks which helps to picture the feeling I am looking for.
Source: “Character Walk Reference” – on YouTube
Again I would like to produce my animation in the same way as Sorcha McGlinchey’s class with us where she used Photoshop/Illustrator/After Effects to create 2D animation.
And also, the advert series of the ‘Dove Self-esteem project’ and ‘Steven Universe’ is one of my animation/visual inspirations for each of my cycle/motion animations. Here is another video from the same project which I enjoy.
This short animation called Kaeru, made by students from the San Jose State University, is also a nice visual inspiration. From the variety of analogous colour palettes, to the subtle textured look that gives the story more life and realness. They also portray strong emotions such as self doubt, rage and joy.
I found this After effects animation tutorial that quickly goes over a simple walk cycle sequence. This is an informative video for referring back to the tools and tricks on after effects, and also remind me of Sorcha’s 2D animation class with us. I will keep these bits of information in mind when I am at the animating stage.
Now I am ready to start the body mechanics animation. I will start by thumb-nailing my main key poses.
I used Adobe Photoshops video sequence timeline tool to complete this thumbnail sequence. I drew in a rough character model and drew out the main key frames that I picked up from the video reference I collected.
Before I started, I brought up this walk cycle reference from the book ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams’. This is a very helpful guide to point out the main key poses to use such as contact, up, and down.
I used reference at the side of my screen as I filled in the key poses of a walk cycle such as the contact, down, pas pos. etc. I made sure to include the personality/ feeling of unbothered and slumpy. I made the arms swing as they were flimsy, and the walk itself is slow.
After some adjustments, I finished the rough thumbnail for the walk cycle – I made two versions, one faster than the other just to see what speed I should go for.
I am quite happy with how these turned out. I may look over them one more time but I am okay with the flow and how the arms swing.
Next, I want to design my character and background in preparation for the storyboard, and for the final scene buildup.
Again I was hoping to bring to life the design and look of one of my drawings as I think its an effective and stylish design. I also made sure to back up my design with a reference from Pinterest, just to help me out with structuring the clothes, seeing it from a real life photo. These will help me design my character, inspire new ideas, and pick my colour scheme.
I made some initial sketches, then designed my walk cycle character below. I illustrated the character in a standing pose to highlight each aspect of the design, and in a walking position to see how it will appear in the cycle. I really like the colour palette on this character, and how it fits with my visual for the walk cycle scene I imagine.
From my brainstorm beforehand, I had a visual of what setting I wanted to achieve for the scene. I was going for a dark night, rural area with strange red vibrance across the scene. I found some reference images to the right that help visualise this for me.
With these reference images, I picked out the main pieces of each setting that I wanted to capture etc. The bright red lights, the dark blue clouds/sky, the dark grassy areas. I also used these images to pick out my colours. The preview of the background with my character, is below. I enjoyed illustrating this background, I like the composition of the clouds, and how the moon shines through.
After my design process, I started capturing how the scene will play out in a storyboard. I added a rough sketch of the designed character, and a rough sketch of the background. I also added descriptions on each shot to explain what will happen, and what reaction I want to capture from them.
From my last 2D Animation lesson with Sorcha looking at building rigs on photoshop – I learned to Illustrate each part of a character’s body in separate layers – how to position each part, and add pin points to help with rigging the limbs at a later stage.
I used my character design page as reference to make the character rig on photoshop. I placed down two guides to position where the feet are, for the right to be closer to the foreground than the left.
I made each part of the character in a separate layer. I adjusted the layer settings so I could see the preview of each part better. I labelled each layer of what the parts are called etc. the hands, the arm, the head, the neck. I also made multiple parts to the arms and legs as they will be movable/bendable when I transfer them into After Effects. etc. arm, forearm, then hand, thigh, calf then foot. I added shadow details to the design with a textured brush on Photoshop to distinguish each part from each other, but also give it a nice style.
After this, I added sphere shapes around the body where the joints are, or where the skeleton pins will be within the rigging stage. I made them bright red so they are clear to see and use.
Once this rig was finished, I was ready to bring my work into After effects. I brought over my background, with the foreground grass layer separate, the thumbnail walk cycle to reference from, and the character rig/layers.
To start rigging the character, I used a free tool called DUIK Bassel.
Since this is the first cycle I will try to animate, I practiced the rigging process of the whole character to see what I could learn from it. There are rigs for different parts of the body. What I used most were the arms, legs, and spine rig. they come in coloured bones and pin points to link to each part. Etc. There are three bones for the arm, forearm and hand. When I aligned the bones to the pin points on my character, I parent and linked each character part to the skeleton part. I highlighted the skeleton rig from the timeline, and clicked auto rig from the Duik menu.
Once this was done a control for the rig appeared. I was able to use this to adjust the function of the rig, and its animation.
Within this control I found that:
I could edit the icon position to sit where the hand is for easier movement
I could reverse the bend of the limb if the bend was wrong, of If I were to change it for animating
I could turn off auto-stretch to avoid the limbs from disconnecting from each other.
I started animating the limbs and skeletons of the rig to make a walk cycle. My first draft is below:
Here I started to work on the leg positions using my video reference, and the Animation survival kit walk cycle reference. I tried out movements within the head and the body however they weren’t very accurate. The walk also appeared too slow, I would try fix this later on.
Draft 2:
In my second draft I blocked out the arms for the first time, and had toned down the movements of the body and head for the time being. I did not like how the arms would snap and lock as it moved. I made note of this to work on later.
Draft 3:
I made a lot more progress with my third draft. I added some rotation to the hands that make the arm look like it swings more. The legs work better with the additional adjustments I made. I also worked again on the up and down movements of the body and head. I also animated the background moving to see how it looked. What I can improve on is that the shoulders of the arms are not moving along with the body – I have to find a way to implement this. I am still not a fan of how the arms snap – I may redo the arm animation later on.
Draft 4:
Draft four had a nicer flow to the walk cycle, but I made a strange motion to the arms which I thought would give it a smoother look. It ended up swinging too fast, and snapping too much. I will look over the arm animation again to see what I can do to adjust it.
Draft 5
With draft five I focused on the body positions. I animated the hips and torso going up and down, the coat and collar moving along, and the head tilting as they walk.
Draft 6:
I fixed the arms in draft six as much as I could. The arms do not snap as much as it did, and it flows alot better. However I still feel the animation overall is quite slow and blocky. I want to take time to explore ways I can add detail to the movements.
I explored the basics of the graph editor, built into After Effects. This is a tool that helps to graph our motions by speed values etc. I will be using the tool to help time my positions of the character, and smooth out the sequence as a result.
It was at first strange to see a graph like this when I started to look through my controls motions. I was not sure where to begin with cleaning this up, or if it was meant to be like this.
I had a look at a few videos that helped my understanding of the tool, and how I could make the graphs cleaner and smoother.
This video called ‘How To Use the Graph Editor After Effects’ by SkillShare introduced me to the basics of the graph editor on After Effects. I learnt about the different values, the easy ease options, the curve tool, and more.
This video called ‘Clean Up Your Act – Editing the Speed Graph’ by ‘After Effects by Gerard’ helped me grasp an idea on how to edit the graph and fix what keyframes have already been set. This enormously helped me in understanding how the speed graph works and what angles I could create to make different speed effects.
This is a graph for the rotation value of a part of the body (walk cycle). I selected each keyframe and pressed the fourth keyframe button to the bottom right, ‘Auto-Bezier’. This created a curve throughout the path and made the motion smoother. I could also use options like ‘Easy ease’ to create a similar effect.
Draft 7:
With this knowledge, I moved on with my walk cycle. With this seventh draft I made use of the graph editor to clean up the movements. During this time I had also added a closed eye illustration and made it so the character blinks. I worked on the head tilt which works a lot better this time round. However, I am still unsure about the arms – they still look quite stiff. I also would like to revisit the legs and adjust them too.
To be able to find ways to improve my work, I asked my peer for feedback on my animations. They liked the animation and suggested that the walk cycle character could have more personality. I appreciate another person viewing my work for a different perspective and thought about the visual. This will help me improve what I couldn’t see.
Draft 8:
In this draft I made some additional touches to the expression and personality to the cycle. I mentioned before I wanted this character to be tired and unbothered to the world around her. After the feedback I realised I did not add this idea in sooner. I made a few more lip shapes, and animated the chest going up then down – suggesting that they are taking a deep breath and sighing. This adds a lot more personality to the character and visualises what they are feeling at the moment. (Image to left: process of adding lip shapes)
I also reassembled the keyframes of the arms and legs again, as I was not happy with them before. I will try adjusting the graph editor on these parts more. I also want to try another visual to the scenery by adding fog. I will try experiment within After Effects and see what I can make.
Draft 9:
Here I was polishing up the animations on the arms and legs once again, making sure they move correctly and smoothly. I still think the arms could use with a little more work, so I will try finalise it soon. I also made some coloured fog images to add to the scene. However they aren’t very visible and do not quite resemble the look of fog. I will also try this out again, and see what I can come up with.
I continued on from here and adjusted the arms once again.
I also turned up the intensity of the fog, and added a grain effect. It is an interesting visual, however I think it could be more effective with some movement – the way fog moves in real life. I may try look for a reference, and a way to achieve the look.
Here is an interesting video on different kinds of fog visuals and how they spread across an environment. I will try experiment with what I know within after effects with the help of this reference.
Draft 10:
I found this smoke/fog animation tutorial that greatly helped me in creating an effective fog look to my scene. I added some of my own touches to the animation such as the gradient / transparent look, and the slowness to fit the behaviour of fog. This is a quite different approach to what I was experimenting with. I was going for a more realistic fog look, while this is a simple solid shape. I think this fits more to the style of my animation based on the solid shapes in my scene.
This created a great visual for my scene that adds to the spooky, mysterious surroundings the character is in. I am happy with this result, and I would say the animation is done here.
Once I was finished my animation, I brought the final video into Premiere pro, to create a looped video, and add sound.
I gathered this sound to suit the scene. I found a copyright free wind sound effect. I thought this would be great to add to the spookiness and eerie atmosphere of the scene I built.
I uploaded my video and this sound onto a Premiere Pro file.
Here I had duplicated my video four times to get a long looped video of my animation. The transition from one to the other works very well. I added the sound below playing through each of the videos.
After this the edited version of my animation was done, and overall the walk cycle animation was complete. Here it is below:
I am happy with the outcome of this walk cycle. I found it challenging at times but It was fun to create an environment like this. I like the scene style and the character personality. The actual walk cycle took a lot of tries to perfect, but I feel if I had studied a bit more with the tools within after effects, or looked more at my references, I feel the cycle could have been improved as a result. Especially the arms in this animation, I had struggled with them quite a lot along the way. Other than this I am happy with the result.
On the 5th week, our tutor Alec gave us a talk about Job contracts, freelancing, and the option to choose placement year.
Animation Job contracts
For an animation job, the salary is quoted as an annual salary before tax. If it is a permanent contract, it may stay an annual salary review. Usually within an animation job, you can check to see if you are eligible for any bonuses, for example when you finish a project ahead of time.
The length of a contract in an animation job is usually a fixed term, for example, lengths between 3 / 6 / 12 months at a time. Some studios could offer a rolling contract if you wish to keep working with them. Permanent contracts are much less common in the entertainment industry, but they can still happen.
In an animation job, Some contracts could state if there is overtime and if it is paid. Alternatively, the impact of COVID has increased the use of remote work – means more Flexi-time.
In terms of legal rights, contracts should state employee and employer rights, terms of contract termination, notice periods etc. Creative studios may provide contractual, non-disclosure agreements for all work undertaken.
We know retirement is a long way off for us, but it is a common thing, and worth planning now when we start working. Although, our employer could also auto-enrol you into a workplace pension. And if we are, or become self-employed in the future – we should set up a personal pension.
There is ultimately a difference between having experience vs no experience before you attempt to look for a job.
Having work experience up to 3-5+ years allows for
levelling up skill and speed in efficient time
time to build a network of contacts
gain confidence in your abilities
Having little to no work experience requires the need to
create a professional standard of portfolio work that will capture clients
The speed/skill of workflow would need work on
‘Effort and perseverance is the key’
Location
Belfast /NI
fewer studios and advertising agencies
cheaper rent / cost of living
Nice to live close to home, or at home
England / London
more studios – one of the main bases in Europe for Animation /VFX / Advertising agencies
Expensive rent
More cities with different creative opportunities etc. Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester
Remote / In-house
Covid has allowed more business to go remotely – to stop the spread the virus
can be competing against cheaper labour markets – where places are going fully remote
Freelancing ‘in-house’ or close, is easier to manage in a team environment – may be called in occasionally
In-house reduces cost of software
building trust to work from home, will allow you to be more flexible to work remotely – benefit in future jobs
Pricing / Overheads
This is a good triangle diagram which categories what is good, cheap or fast work. No work can be all three at the same time. When a client asks for work to be fast etc. following this graph will let you know that this work may not be the best quality, or may be more expensive – if you are to work at a fast pace. It is good to know what you are worth.
Pricing
Day rate – min – £200-300 and up (England) – £150 and up (NI)
Project quote – Day rate x number of days – with % discount (eg. 10 to 20%)
Note – your prices can vary depending on the medium / quality of your experience
Overheads
Hardware – PCs, External drives
Software licenses – can be billed to client separately
May get asked for creative input, but also rejected
keep networking
Keep learning – training in studios
Keep your showreel / portfolio up to date
Keep looking for opportunities near the end of your contract
build your brand / artwork by blogging, vlogging, social media
Work at work! Stay off phone / social media at work
Take regular breaks from screen
From this lecture I have more knowledge about the insides of applying for jobs, working on contracts, freelancing and more. It is refreshing to finally understand what the different types of contracts are, how to calculate my pricing and pay rate, how tax will affect this and so on.
After our lecture, We took on a task by looking through a chosen brief. We were to read through the brief and identify areas of concern that we should be addressing to a client for effective communication in the future.
My group worked on the Bar promotion advert brief. The concerns we found were:
Are there character designs to work from to make ‘character animations ‘ of the ‘anthropomorphic animals’? Or do we create both the character designs, and animation?
What drink/food are we promoting? What bar are we promoting?
What style should the animation be in? What visual direction do we have?
How will the animation play out? Do we make a script/storyboard/animatic to plan this?
This seems like a lot of work to be delivered in one month
What software/hardware am I using? Do I pay for my own supplies?
What is the pay rate?
It is good to know that we understand the errors in this brief and what we would consider communicating to the client about in order to make our job easier and smoother. It lets us know we are prepared to work for our own worth, and take on work we know we can handle, instead of being underpaid, or overworked.
I also chose to make a few general assets for the Haunted Mansion. This included the wall’s wallpaper, the rips on the wall, the smoking pipe, and more.
I first started with the smoking pipe.
I took time gathering references for this smoking pipe – figuring out which shape to use etc.
I imported some images to Maya and started blocking out the shape of the bowl of the smoking pipe.
I then modelled out the stem of the smoking pipe. I used edge loops for both parts to scale the shape how they are on the references. I combined both parts, taking time to delete inside faces and merge vertices.
Because of the angle and shape of where the two parts connect, It was quite difficult to figure out but I managed to clean it up with no problems.
Next I used the boolean-difference tool to carve out the chamber inside the bowl. I then cleaned up any thing else around the model and smoothed the asset.
Lastly I UV mapped the asset and made sure the faces were present and cut neatly.
I brought the asset into Substance Painter. I placed down some materials and used the paint Layer option to paint on wood texture on this smoking pipe. I also added the metal strap between the bowl and stem like most smoking pipe designs have.
I made some shadow paint layers around the asset also. I used a fill layer and with height turned negative so I could apply some alpha shapes onto the model. I added scratches and dents all around the wood, and stains around the stem.
Next I started designing the wallpaper for the haunted mansion walls.
First of all I gathered many references to help me visualise what we wanted the walls to look like.
We discussed this as a group in our weekly call, and found what we liked best from our previous reference of mansion movie sets or victorian houses etc. We agreed to go back and use the colour palette page, and preferred to use a green/gold combination on the wall. We thought it would be eye-catching and also blend in with the lighting we are thinking of for later on.
With my reference I drew up three different designs for the repetitive pattern on the wall. I presented these to my group and they liked the idea of blending the first and second designs together, so I went forward with this idea.
I had reference at the side of my screen as I designed and painted the final idea of the pattern. I was happy with the look when it was painted and I continued with the seamless texture pattern.
I moved over to illustrator to use the dartboard feature to complete this. I placed the main symbol in a pattern in the middle of one dartboard, and duplicated the board 8 more times. I then placed more of the symbol in the middle of the corners of four artboards.
I quickly painted a copy of the symbol in a green colour as a subsidiary in the pattern. It made the design look more full as a result.
I imported the design into Substance Painter as a singular artboard. I placed the design onto the wall and it successfully repeats the pattern all around the wall.
This was my final result of the seamless wallpaper texture.
Next I made rips for the wallpaper. At first I was aiming to make cracks on the walls, and got quite far in the texturing stage, but I was stuck figuring out how to apply the texture the way I was looking for into UE. I was also not happy with the result and wanted to try something new.
I was researching what wallpaper rips look like online. This gave me a visual idea of how the rips will look.
First I picked out a material from Substance Painter that fit my visual for the rips, and applied this to a plane asset. I exported the texture as one PNG, as I didn’t need the other types of texture files. I Brought the texture onto Photoshop and painted a rip look with this material.
I made three different versions so they can vary around the Haunted Mansion, in different scale and rotations. I was able to add these images in as decals onto UE.
I made this writing desk quite a while ago while I was practicing how to use Maya. Since I didn’t use it for any other project, I thought it would be useful for this project. In addition, its design is great for a place like our haunted mansion, it fits into the theme well.
I made a few adjustments to the model, such as separating the whole parts, and adding/replacing faces/vertices as it was quite messy and could not UV unfold correctly.
Many parts were flipped the wrong way, not cut/sewn properly so I went through each piece and made sure its map was correct. I was able to unfold and UV map everything with ease eventually.
Here is the model UV mapped correctly. When this was done, I brought it into Substance Painter to texture.
I used our regular collection of wood materials for the desk and applied it on. I experimented with making this desk look old and withered by adding dust, wood chipping off the corners, and dirty handprints still left on it. I added on the shadows and highlights where it suited around the model, as it gives it a nicer, colourful look.
I also made the floor for the Haunted Mansion.
I used Henry’s teachings on the modular asset lesson to make this floor. I followed his process of placing blocks of polys, aligning them with the snap tool, and so on.
Source:
I made use of the video to help me make my floor base. I added the plane over the top of it as well. Later on, I also used the lattice tool to give the floor a bit of wonkiness to add to the theme we are going for.
I imported the assets into Substance Painter, and made it so the high poly was combined with the low poly. I went about this technique of painting on each plank on the floor manually. – So that each wood part was positioned differently instead of all the same.
However, I had trouble with this file and it would not let me open it again. I made a new file, and avoided this process & stuck with using the high poly model.
I placed on a wood material from our collection and started adding shadow to the edges of the planks to give it depth. I was lucky as each plank was a separate model, it would vary its pattern.
I posted a work in progress screenshot to the group and asked if they liked the floor so far. They did appreciate it but they also considered that I use a different wood material as the other was a little distracting. I agreed and changed it with the Wood beams material. I think it was a good call as this one suits the floor design a lot better. It fits better with the visual of our mansion. I added last touches of shadows and vibrances onto the wood and it was finished.
I took some time to help out our teammate Caithlin to texture her model of the Gramophone.
She provided me with the fbx file and I started working on the textures. I used our wood materials to apply to the base of the gramophone. I added a dark green accent to the base to match the room walls colours. I textured the vinyl on the soundbox, and lastly I added a gold material and experimented with roughness textures to the horn of the gramophone.
I started modelling the grand door with the use of my concept design page and a couple references to start with.
I started blocking out the shapes of the door with my reference behind. I made each part of the door in a different colour as I got confused with the model in all grey for a while.
I had been blocking in these parts in the same slanted position as the drawing, though it was difficult to line up the polys in a right diagonal line, so I rotated them back into a straight position so they can sit better together.
I added a few edge loops to the window part and the door parts. I extruded inwards the inside faces of each model by three squares so they both have some depth to them.
I took a break from the door and started working on the door knocker. We have a running theme of bones of animals around our haunted house, so I wanted to continue this theme with a skull door knocker. I used my image reference and my drawing reference to block out the head shape. I modelled the teeth in the similar way to my grandfather clock. Then I added a torus shape for the door handle.
I wasn’t sure how to go about the eyes and nose of the door knocker as of yet, so I brought back the door to continue working on.
Like my drawing, I tried to recreate the door design shapes onto my model. I made the door part in x-ray view so I could see the reference behind while I block out the shapes. as much as they look like the drawing, I wasn’t happy with the outcome at all. I feel as though I am missing some knowledge and visual of how to design this door. – There is no pattern, and the shapes look out of place.
I took a step back from the model, and researched more on front door designs. This will help me spark more ideas and figure out how to structure this design.
I made a new concept page with some new reference to help spark ideas. I learned that most door designs consist of simpler shapes that slide in together, like squares, diamonds, stars and rectangles. I drew them out and came up with a new pattern for the door.
I ended up redoing the model and shaping them in a regular way as its easier for me to snap each part together and go by the grid to make sure there are no gaps.
I modelled the shapes from my piece, which I had placed in my Maya scene. I gave most of them some more edge loops to create the shape I was looking for etc. the Star shape needed more vertices to be shaped the way it is.
I also extended the back edge loop of each shape outwards to give it an outwards bevelled look.
When copied and pasted to the other side, along with the skull door handle, this is what the model looks like at this point. Next I wanted to UV map the piece, then use the lattice tool later on.
It was quite easy to UV map this piece as most of the shapes were squares. the more difficult polys to UV map were the skulls. I had to plan a edge cut around the head and beak of the skull to break it into four parts.
I combined the model together, froze its transformations and deleted its history. I then started using the lattice tool to warp the shape I originally wanted to capture on the door. I got the position, then I took off the lattice tool. Now the door was ready to texture.
I bake mesh the model and place a few textures on for now to see how the door would look. I showed the group and they liked how it was going so I continued with this look. I used one the wood texture ‘Wood beams’ for the door and the bone materialised material for the skull & pupils.
Much like my other assets, I placed two paint layers down, one for highlights and one for shadows. I use these palette saved colours to paint on shadows in sharp corners, and vibrance on the middle of the wood parts. This definitely makes the wood of the assets more colourful and stylised the way we were aiming for.
I had placed the bone stylised material onto the skulls and made adjustments, but I wasn’t happy with the look. I researched door handles to see if I could get colour/material inspiration and I found this image on the right. I wanted to see if I could aim for this look.
I added a copper material with a dark brown colour on, and experimented with the grunge procedural textures to add roughness and gold to the skull.
It was a challenge to aim for the look I wanted but I got a result I was happy with. I applied metal edge wear with the brass pure material, the grunge dirt thin texture, and dark shadows.
Later on I started using the blur filter (on the shadow layer) for less detailed parts such as the door shapes. This made for a softer, cleaner look.
I continued the shadow and vibrance applying all around the door where suitable. I have left the window area without a ‘stained glass’ material for now as I am unsure how to create the effect. Our team agree that we will see what we could achieve when we bring it into Unreal Engine.
And this is the finished model and texture of the Grand Door! Again, this was a challenging asset to make, especially at the modelling stage on Maya. I wasn’t sure how to start off the model, and the position on my concept page set me off track a bit, but I got back into it an started a more simpler way to help continue the process. I found the texturing interesting and fun to complete as I had more knowledge of how to design the wood, based on my past assets. Overall I’m happy with the look This will be a key asset for an interesting cinematic shot.
I have started modelling and planning the structure of the walls of the mansion. This is an important modular set to start with so we can build the layout of the rooms first then it will be easier to add the furniture parts after.
I placed down a human scale mannequin from Maya’s contents into the scene, and put in simple cube polygons to make a wall, the low part being the wood paneling, and the high part being wallpaper. I discussed with my team during class and we agreed we wanted to make the walls quite high for us to display lots on the wall, and produce the angular and spooky look we want.
I made three different wall modular assets. one as a singular wall, and two separate corner walls.
When taking reference from Alisa’s room concepts, and many housing reference such as the image below, I wanted to create some nice wood panel design to enhance the antique/victorian mansion look.
Here are a few parts I modelled. I added pillars, skirting board design, and details at the top. However, this was quite difficult to model, as I came across non-manifold geometry.
The images below show that I modelled this design separate, then used boolean – difference on a plain cube. This created non-manifold geometry, because the shapes contained more than four faces in the geometry. I tried my best to cleanup the model and add some edge loops, but it did not fix the solution.
I did try to do this again with shapes that were only four sides to try avoid the problem however I still could not find a good solution.
During this time I also assigned each part a material to keep it together. One Lambert material for the wallpaper, one for the wall wood, and one for the wood paneling.
After presenting this problem to my group we discussed this and decided I should go a different route. I decided to replace this part with a border. Matthew also suggested I could recreate the detail above for when I get to substance painter – designing the texture. I could use the height option to allow the detail to stick out like how the wood panelling is. So as of now this is what the wall looks like.
After this, I made a few more adjustments to the walls such as giving more structure and build to the side pillar of the wall. My outliner as this point, is sorted into groups. I had three separate walls, and around 3-6 wood design groups for each wall.
I started UV editing each model as I was able to optimise their maps, now that the geometry is fixed. I started with the back walls as they are the easiest to cleanup. They were cut in the right place and were simple to layout on the UV map. Next I worked on the wood details as they needed some more focus on. I made sure to cut and sew the seams in a suitable way, and optimise them in a good position. Lastly I worked on the side pillar as it was a little more complicated, but worked a similar way to the walls.
At one point I was happy with how the model was looking so I created three different versions of the walls. One on its own, and two different corner walls.
However, after week 5 I had shown my progress to tutors/teammates and I figured some more work needed to be done to make this assets structure better.
Me and the group discussed about the room walls and we decided we wanted to go for more irregular shaping in the wall itself / more wonkiness. So I went back into the Maya scene and replaced the corner wall versions with three singular walls for me to work on.
I used the lattice tool on these three walls to warp the wall in different angles. I made it different for each wall so there are variety in the pattern. As soon as I was finished with the lattice tool I selected it, then deleted its history, so that the warped part on the wall would stay as that shape.
I went back to check the hypershade to fix up the assigned materials, as there were some duplicates. I assigned back the original materials to what it was, then I deleted the other materials. I also checked on the UV maps of each of the walls. I cleaned up the detail wood mostly as some parts were flipped over/not cut right etc.
After this the models were done (apart from a few adjustments I make later). So I exported each model as an fbx. I uploaded the straight singular wall into Substance painter on 2048 resolution, and UV workflow maps turned on. Here It is as I baked the mesh maps.
I was happy with the model apart from the subtle lines that appear on the middle of the wall, where the wallpaper is being placed. I tried the wallpaper on to see if I preferred it but I did not. – The wallpaper does not overlap over the line but the line cuts it right through, so it doesn’t pattern all the way through. I went back into Maya to change this.
I separated each of the wall models and swapped the 3-split wall with a full wall – the size of there three parts combined. Here is what it looked like after I swapped these parts.
I set up a Substance painter file again and added the fbx. I placed down the wallpaper and I was much happier with this outcome. To get an idea of colours and looks I had also placed down temporary wood materials.
Since this model is a UDIM, I was able to space out the parts of the model for different materials. Here I am applying wood materials but In separate areas so that the wood material I am using will maintain its size that fits right for the shape.
Using Matthew’s wood materials I was able to add a variety to distinguish the back part of the wall, from the front. This made it look more unique and busy. I also used the same technique I did with the Grandfather clock and used paint layers to paint on contrasting colours, highlights and shadows onto the wood to give it more vibrance and depth.
I worked carefully on the edges of the wood material to give that wood look. I had collected a few references to help me with this look.
I used some reference of real wood to picture how the tones/value of the wood looks. I tried to capture how it is dark on the edges/sides of the wood, vibrant around the middle, and lighter at the top part of the wood.
I also collected existing wood materials made on substance etc. to find how other artist have gone about this. They also have that same idea I am going for with dark-edges, light-middle. They also experiment with scratches and dents in their work, which I could explore.
After going through these references, I was liking how my wood planks were looking.
After some more adjustments this would have been the finished look of the wall. I also wanted to bring this same design onto the other walls also so I combined my layers of materials/textures/paintings and made them a Smart material.
I started bringing all my smart materials onto the three wonky walls. They fit on well apart from small areas such as the shadow lines on the pillar, and the detail wood planks whens took up/down. I was able to adjust the painted parts fairly easily.
And this is the finished model and texture of the room walls! They were challenging to make especially at the start of the process, where I changed up the structure of the wall multiple times. I really liked designing the wallpaper and painting on the vibrants, highlights and shadows on the wood. This is a very important asset for the Haunted Mansion as it Is what builds the environment.
In addition to creating this model, I came across a problem relating to the degenerate tangents and almost zero bi normals in the mesh of the asset. This error came about in both Unreal Engine and Substance Painter. To tackle this problem, I visited my model back in Maya. I noticed the original pillar design was quite difficult to arrange on the UV editor. I did have a spare pillar design that was a simpler mesh, that I replaced with the original pillar, on each wall. This model was easier to UV map and still fit well with the wall.
Although, this still did not fix the problem. I asked my tutor Henry, about the situation. He inspected the model and suggested I should look about a few clean up options before I export my FBX. This included deleting the history,
This all eventually fixed the issue. I was able to redo my textures on substance Painter without the error, and import my models into Unreal Engine with ease.
For the phone, I added it to the main composition for the character, just underneath the right hand. I parented the phone to the right hand control, and the phone successfully moved along with the arm, with the hand holding onto it.
In this draft I made some additional touches to the expression and personality to the cycle. I mentioned before I wanted this character to be tired and unbothered to the world around her. After the feedback I realised I did not add this idea in sooner. I made a few more lip shapes, and animated the chest going up then down – suggesting that they are taking a deep breath and sighing. This adds a lot more personality to the character and visualises what they are feeling at the moment. (Image to left: process of adding lip shapes)
I imported some images to Maya and started blocking out the shape of the bowl of the smoking pipe.
At one point I was happy with how the model was looking so I created three different versions of the walls. One on its own, and two different corner walls.
After this the models were done (apart from a few adjustments I make later). So I exported each model as an fbx. I uploaded the straight singular wall into Substance painter on 2048 resolution, and UV workflow maps turned on. Here It is as I baked the mesh maps.
