Week 8 – Animation Practice & Rigging continued

With today’s morning session, we were given the task of animating the Monty rig expressing joy. However, I decided that I wanted to challenge myself, thus aimed to animate Monty skipping and then falling on his face. I first went on YouTube to find a video reference of this so that the outcome would appear believable and accurate. Once I captured all of the main poses from the video, I added these to PureRef and worked alongside Maya. Doing this allowed me to have a side-by-side comparison of my model movement and reference, making it easier than looking from another window or device. With the frames themselves, I began blocking these in and I ensured to check the whole animation every time I added a new one- this prevented any erratic movements with the rig. With the final result, I felt as though I did really well and it is obvious that I have improved in 3D animation over the span of a week. It isn’t much progress, but I feel as though I am getting the grasp of things fairly quickly and so far, I have been enjoying being a part of this progress. Using the Monty rig in today’s lesson has made me feel more confident as I am now able to detect if a movement is incorrect or off with an animation. Ultimately, I will continue to keep up with this pace I have going in order to improve for my upcoming assignment.

Below are a handful of screenshots in which I have taken during today’s class:

↕ Blocking in frames whilst using reference ↕

Experimenting outside the comfort zone with fall sequence

Editing out the frames using Dope sheet in order to adjust timing

Final Monty outcome:

Afternoon sessions commence!

After the morning tutorials, we were allowed to go ahead and start on the afternoon exercises. Following the tutorial that Alec demonstrated, this is my outcome for the first exercise-blend shapes. At first, I was a little intimidated by this exercise as modifying the expressions of a face always seemed as though it would be difficult- this was far from the case. I found this task relatively simple to follow through and our tutor, Alec explained this process in a way that was easy to understand for beginners. I would say that my outcome was better than expected, and I am glad with how it turned out. After this exercise, I am going to make it my mission to do more research into blend shapes and maybe look at some artist references in relation.

Short video display of my outcome:

Rigging With Joints & Editing joint skin weights

Here are some screenshots of my progress of rigging joints and editing skin weights. This task was really different in comparison to the previous ones and was a bit more complicated at first. After I got the hang of it, I actually found it rather enjoyable to do and especially liked painting the weights on. This exercise was beneficial to me as I was unaware of how I could change the weights of an object, learning this has expanded my knowledge on the topic of rigging and animation.

↕ Setting up the skeleton of the cylinder ↕

Adding NURBS curve controls

Adding weight to object

↕ Continuation of adding weight & prepping for animation ↕

The pre-production of Assignment 2 – Animation Studies

Down below, I have begun mind mapping what I will be doing for both of my animations. I have chosen the Monty rig as I feel that this model will be easier to convey emotion with, especially since I have decided to portray fear as my chosen expression. For the action-based animation, I will do a jump animation conveying the weight of the character. By doing the jump animation, it will be a great example of studying weight with animating in 3D.

Pose practice- studying body language

In preparation, I have done some sketches in order to practice poses that portray fear in order to practice from an anatomy point of view. Moreover, I will continue to practice looking at references similar to these so it can help me visually understand how body language changes in its reaction to fear.

Continuing to draw from reference…

Here are some more referenced sketches drawn to practice for my upcoming animations. Above is the original sketches I did of the model in the images, whereas the bottom page are these poses reimagined as being the Monty model.

Looking at references of body language: Mike Wazowski

I decided that I would begin starting to look at animations that had good examples of body language in terms of emotions and also squash & stretch. Below I studied Mike Wazowski whom I thought would be a perfect reference for the Monty rig. I decided that attempting to draw these poses in my style, and also breaking them down would help me get a grasp of how much flexibility I have with Monty’s model, thus it has made me realize the variety of poses/actions I could do with both of my animation outcomes.

Beginning storyboards for my animations

After I finished practicing with poses and researching into various animation examples in relation, I have begun making my storyboards prior to my animatics. By creating these, it will keep me on track of how I will model Monty in Maya, thus will help the animation stay fluid. Moreover, I feel as though these were decently drawn and laid out, which makes me feel more prepared and motivated to get started on my animatic and my final animation.

Storyboard – Fear reaction

Storyboard- Jump action

Inspirations so far…

Throughout this process, I have been inspired by multiple animations and artists for my Monty assignment. I have further looked into other animation work by Pixar and Disney. A good example of this is from the video below, which is focused on Luxo Jr. I have picked this video for reference as I love how this animation portrays action and expression through body language alone. The characters don’t have facial features, so it solely relies on how they move and interact with their environment. I find this to be amazing and makes me feel aspired to become more experienced in the areas of body language to make my characters more emotive. By doing the Monty assignment, it will benefit me greatly with practicing in this area.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4NPQ8mfKU0

Shown above, I have also looked at Pixar’s latest YouTube video, ‘Coco Animation Progression Reel’ which shows the production from start to finish. I found this to be extremely interesting to watch as I was able to see the steps and processes of this animation and how things changed and improved in the final version. This makes me feel hopeful that my Monty animations will look better in comparison to my storyboards and initial sketches as I would put more time into the final outcome. Overall, this progress has inspired me not only with the Monty assignment but also with the progress of our group animation, Hubris. I will take what I have learned here to apply it to my current and future studies- basically pre-production is essential!

Turning these storyboards into animatics

The ultimate outcome of these animatics was far better than I expected. I did these using the previous sketches from my storyboards to make them consistent. I then added some occasional in-betweens and adjusted the timing suited to how I would imagine it. In order to do this animatic, I used Krita to put these drawings together and to adjust the timing of the scene. Ultimately, these worked out reasonably well and I feel quite hopeful with this project thus far!

Monty fear reaction

Monty jump action

Photo/video reference for animation

Below is a collection of photographic and video references in which I have acted out the poses for my animations. These were used for my storyboard and animatic and have helped me so far to figure out my key poses and to give me a rough idea of how my final animation may look like. Acting this out was really fun and I feel as though I did a relatively decent job of capturing the movement and expressions required for the criteria. The only thing that deemed difficult was getting the right recording and set of photographs, especially since I got tired out after a while. Despite this, I was determined to get it perfect, and the hard work definitely paid off.

Image sequence used for jump animatic