For this assignment, Adam, Liam, Josh, Joe and I will be working as a team to create a nature-themed 30 second animated short.
Brainstorming
We began by brainstorming ideas for what our animation could be about. Writing on the wall allowed everyone to get their ideas written down, which meant we could go back to an idea and expand on it, as well as mix similar ideas together.
We all loved the ‘Insect Standoff’ idea, and moved forward with it. Adam came up with the name ‘The Good, The Bug and The Ugly’ which inspired lots of new ideas for the content of the short. We imagined the iconic scene from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly where Clint Eastwood exchanges glances with the other gunslingers during their stand-off. Using this as inspiration, there are plenty of opportunities to have fun with the idea as we progress.
(Pinterest)
Storyboard
I created a brief storyboard for a potential scene in the animation based on this. I drew some of the concepts about where the animation would take place as one of the locations was beside the sea, and tried to visualise what gunslinging bugs might look like.
I think this storyboard effectively visualises the reference to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Next time, I will make a storyboard which uses more linework and less paintbrushes. This would make each frame more decisive and detailed, and therefore easier to follow. I will also ensure the artwork stays consistent, as the linework on the first two frames draws attention away from the remaining four.
We came up with a story – two western bugs would have a showdown while spectators watched and a narrating voice would introduce the insects like David Attenborough, one bug would shoot their gun and a spectator would throw something to block the bullet. I thought a sunbathing mirror could be thrown considering the bugs are sitting in the sun. It would knock down the ‘cameraman’ and the short would end. We later decided that this ending would be too complex to animate in the given timeframe – Josh came up with a new ending where a human sized boot would step on the entire scene before any guns are fired. I prefer this ending because it’s unexpected and puts the whole scene into perspective.
We created a powerpoint together on Google Slides to present to the class – Red Bug Redemption
Character Design
I began designing my character – I wanted to create a slug because it has no legs and could look cute and squishy. I took some inspiration from Monsters Inc. and I wanted to recreate the same reflector Squidward uses to sunbathe with.
(Google Images)
I chose to make the slug purple to contrast nicely with an orange desert background.
3D Modelling, Texturing and Rigging
I moved on to modelling my character. Following blackboard tutorials and looking at my drawings, I made the basic shapes for my slug in Maya. Then I brought the model into Blender to add small changes and make the design more rounded. I brought the model back into Maya to rig, which went smoothly after looking at more Blackboard tutorials.
However, I think I will need to redo the global controls so they are connected to the joints from the ground up, rather than from the tail to the head as I have pictured below. I have been changing my mind about how I want the eyes to appear – on the left, they are too human and although I learned new modelling skills by following Youtube tutorials on how to create an eye, I think I will change them to something simpler so they look less eerie. I will also change the joints on the mouth because I think I have added too many which aren’t necessary.
I began unwrapping the UV’s of the slug using maya. Then I brought them into Substance 3D Painter and began painting it’s texture.
I also modelled and textured the mirror in Maya and then Substance 3D Painter. Setting roughness to zero made it very reflective.
I continued working on my rig by fixing the controls.
I felt ready to make a previs of my character’s action.
Making a previs helped me to visualise the camera angles I want to use and helps me to imagine the timing for small details I want to animate later. It also lets me piece together where my character will fit in with the team’s animations and vice versa. Animating the mirror and following it with the camera was challenging to keep smooth, but I think it works well and is a good way to introduce a new scene. I thought about the principals of animation when animating the slug pulling back in anticipation before throwing the mirror, however I forgot to animate the follow through after the mirror is released from it’s arm.
The ending of the story changed and I began working on a new previs for my character animation.
Once I was happy with the rig, I used the shape editor for the mouth and eyes.
Now I can open and close each eye, open and close the mouth as well as make the mouth smile and frown. In the future, I will add controls to make the animation process easier.
Props
I made some props for the set. I thought the towel that the slugs sit on could be textured with bandana print to keep with the Cowboy theme. I also wanted to make a crushed coke can that the slugs can run into to hide.
I used the FX menu to create an nCloth for the towel. Then I flicked through the frames and kept the model that draped over the pebbles the best and deleted the rest. Extruding the model to add thickness made it sit nicely in it’s environment and then I added the bandana texture. In the future I will take the jpeg texture into photoshop and add extra details to it to make it look worn and real before using it as a texture.
The coke can was also modelled in Maya. I rotated the faces on the can to give it a crushed appearance. I watched some YouTube tutorials to learn how to make the metal rims for the can. I UV unwrapped the silver parts of the can and textured them, however I struggled to unwrap the red part of the can. Liam offered to try texturing the main part of the model and it finally worked.
Previs
I made this previs that shows a green block representing Joe’s character and my character reacting to the the standoff and running to hide in the coke can. The rig had other plans.
I realised my rig wasn’t attached to the skin properly and there were a few problems with the areas of influence that controls had on the skin.
I watched some tutorials and YouTube videos and realised I needed to reorganise the grouping and parenting of my controls and mesh. Here is how I organised them. Now I can move my model around without the controls spreading out etc.
I moved onto fixing the constraints on the models arms by using the flood paint tool. This means that now when I move the arm controls, the body of the slug doesn’t move with it.
Now that my character is fully rigged, I am ready to animate my scenes. Here are some rendered shots of what my slug and rug look like on Josh and Liam’s ground surface.
We looked at the storyboard and worked out who was going to animate what. I colour coded each scene to match who wanted to work on it since some scenes will be worked on by more than one person.
Animation and Lighting
I got started animating a scene where both the slugs run and hide in the can. I had a few problems with animating the shape editors, I discovered I just wasn’t keyframing the animation. We decided it would be a good idea to animate our characters in a scene and then delete all of the assets so we can import each animation into a final scene. I thought it would look good if the two slugs turned to look at each other before running away – I animated my slug doing this and made a note of the frames when the eyes are looking at the other slug so that when Joe is animating he can have his slug turn to look at mine on the same frames.
Then I animated my character snoozing, which will be used during the headshot cut scenes. I wanted to focus on it’s heavy breathing and making the eyes and arms move with that motion. I found a sound from Free Sound that would work well with this scene –
I also included an idle animation which can be used if there are any scenes where my character is in the background/ is stationary.
I worked with Liam by animating the can that gets kicked by his boot. I knew the can wouldn’t be in frame for very long, so I didn’t animate it bouncing along the ground to save time.
Liam and I worked on positioning objects in the final environment by deciding on the placement of the can, rug and rocks. Liam modelled and textured the rock – it had a super irregular shape which meant it could be duplicated a number of times and when they are rotated and sized differently you can’t tell that it is the same rock shape. At first there were lots of really large rocks in the centre of the scene so I suggested we make them small and spread them out around the scene so that they don’t clash with the environment.
This environment was uploaded to our Google Share Drive so that everyone can use it to import their animations into it to keep everything consistent.
I downloaded the file on my computer and noticed the textures all need to be added to a source images folder. I created a ‘Textures’ folder on our Google Share Drive so that everybody could upload their character textures and environment textures.
Mike’s tutorial on lighting was really helpful and made me familiar with using lighting. Although I don’t have any screenshots of my own Maya project following the class exercise because currently my laptop can’t run the scene, I considered what I had learned and decided the best light to use in the next scene for my character would be the area light.
For the scene where the slugs run into the can, I moved the can and rug further apart to match the distance the slugs run from the rug to the can. I added an Area Light because my slug was too dark as it was facing away from the Skydome Light and then placed the camera just behind the light. I thought about using three point lighting for my character, however I thought it looked better to only use one with the Skydome Light. Once I had this finalised, I uploaded the file to the Google Drive so that Joe could import his animation and render it.
For this scene, I imported everybody’s character and ensured they were in the same place as where their animations take place. Texturing them was simple by using the source images folder, Liam’s nCloth cape wouldn’t work at first but it turned out it was because the nCache hadn’t been uploaded. Josh’s worm had all of it’s animation in one Maya file, so I deleted all of it’s keyframes except for the ones where the head moved slightly so I had an idle worm and then imported it to the scene. The trickiest problem I had was texturing Joe’s model because some of it’s objects couldn’t be selected and when I applied a texture to one object it would apply it to multiple. It was to do with the way they had been grouped – once this was fixed I keyframed the camera to zoom in subtly and then I began rendering it.
Rendering
I brought my sleeping character into the same environment. I keyed the camera zooming in and began rendering it after watching Mike’s tutorials. I ensured the render settings were all correct and then waited around 30 or 40 minutes to render the scene. It was only 75 frames long but I’m guessing the shiny surfaces made it take longer.
Even though he looks like he’s just eaten some berries, I’m happy that the area light has made my character visible and the camera zooms in nicely. Next time I will focus the camera on the character’s head rather than a midshot.
I wanted the can to be in the centre of the shot and to use the rule of thirds for the perspective. Before I had rendered it I thought I had accomplished that, but looking at it now I see the camera is too far on the right. Regardless, I think this scene allows the audience to get a good idea of where each character is placed. I rendered this scene from frame 18 to give the nCloth cape time to fall.
Post Production
I used After Effects and followed Mike’s tutorial to import the PNG images of my rendered animations and create MP4’s using Adobe Media Encoder that can be edited together on Premiere Pro. I found more sounds that can be added to the Premiere project. As a team we worked out what scenes should go where as we discovered some scenes would make more sense if they were played in a different order. Then Premiere Pro crashed and we had to start again, however it wasn’t too much of a set back since we remembered what scenes went where. We also decided that some scenes could be held for longer than others. We were determined to get the animation completed with sound and credits – we stayed in the classroom until 2am to finally get it finished. Doing this really made me realise the importance of teamwork and I appreciate how becoming true friends with the people you work with can make these stressful situations fun and run smoothly. We each voiced our own opinions on what sound could be used where, what scene could go before another etc. and we really bounced off each other when it came to making these decisions – nobody was scared to say where they think things could be changed and every decision was met with enthusiasm.
Reflection
This module has been a pleasure to take part in, every step of the way. Learning for the first time how a team can come together and produce an animation that reflects what has been taught in class and online was exciting to experience, and it has been really enjoyable to find my place in the production of it. I feel like I have caught a glimpse at what the future holds in terms of all the different areas of animation this module has focused on. Now I have the knowledge and understanding of the different parts in the animation pipeline to know what I like and dislike, where I do well and where I still need to improve. After this experience, I am excited to move forward and put what I have learned to practice in my personal work – I hope to start regularly practicing 3D animation and spend more time coming up with stories that lead to storyboards and so on. This year has helped me develop my creativity in ways I would never have previously discovered and I look forward to next year when I can continue discovering.