Background
Danielle and I decided that it was best that I focused on modelling and texturing most of the assets and props for the environment as Danielle was still focusing on completing and adjusting the pipeline test but was more than happy to help with a few of the smaller props and texturing. We both wrote out a list of assets that would be required for the environment and using Danielle’s concept art I began the modelling and texturing process for the other assets we needed. This process thankfully didn’t take too long due to my previous experience with modelling in Maya from other projects I have done throughout this course.
—Table and Chairs—
Keeping the chunky soft shapes of the furniture were key so I imported Danielle’s concept art into Maya and used it as a reference while modelling the table and chairs. Once the modelling was done I UV unwrapped the table and chairs keeping the seams to the back or underside of the models so that the texturing would not become warped or have a visible seam. After modelling I textured the assets in Substance painter using flat colours and the agreed upon colour scheme for the environment.
—Arcade Machine Colour Variants & Danielle’s Models—
Since the arcade machine was already modelled during the pipeline test I focused on creating the other two variations of the textures to add variety to the environment. To make the texturing more efficient I created some stamps for Substance Painter using this video tutorial;
The stamps I made greatly increased the efficiency of texturing the variations of the arcade machine which was great as I still had a few more models to go.
During this time Danielle helped by modelling, UV unwrapping and texturing some party hats, plates, cups and the corkboard which is a key asset for our story so it was important that it was completed as soon as possible.
*Hats, Plates & Cups created by Danielle*
—Room Layout 1—
Once all the assets were made I moved them into Blender, as advised by Mike, to set up a scene with the outline shader that was made during the pipeline test. We liked how it was looking so we showed it to Mike for some feedback which included; we may wish to adjust the line thickness of the outline shader on some of the props and that there needs to be more variation to the arcade machines as it looks odd that everything was lined against the wall at the same height so I made some new arcade machine models and textures using a similar process to the one I used when making the original arcade machine for the pipeline test and using stamps for efficiency when texturing the models.
—Room Layout 2—
After a feedback session with Danielle we decided that the walls needed more decorations so I modelled and textured some bunting while Danielle illustrated some posters of the main characters and some of the scrapped characters from the start of the project. I then added these assets into Blender and changed the layout of the room a bit to have more space to place the characters when animating and to create a better layout to the arcade overall.
—Posters—
*Posters created by Danielle*
—Room Renders—
When rendering the backgrounds for the animation Danielle and I decided that we wanted to keep the environment looking as flat as possible by limiting the lighting but it just created awkward shadows in placed we didn’t want shadows so I switched the viewport from Rendered display view to the Material display preview which made the backgrounds look a lot flatter and closer to what we wanted the final backgrounds to look like so I rendered the background using those settings.
Rough Animation
Using the storyboards that I made near the start of the project, I created the full rough animation for our next presentation and received some feedback from the tutors.
The main issue the tutors had with the rough animation was the timing of the scenes and the overall pacing of the animation so I made a few adjustments and got Danielle’s thoughts on the new timing before showing it to Mike for feedback.
Once Danielle and I were happy with the timing, pacing and overall flow of the movements in the rough animation we moved onto the next stage of our project, secondary animation.
Secondary Animation
To begin this stage of the project Danielle and I made an excel sheet with all the scenes needed for the animation, what characters were present in each scene, if the scene was animation or a post processing effect and who was assigned to each scene. We knew this stage would take the longest to complete as we wanted to ensure that the animation was as stretchy and smooth as it could be and would make the last few stages easier as we would not need to worry about adjusting the animation during the lineart or colour stage which would slow down our progress and put us behind schedule.
Once everything was assigned we started on animating the scenes and with each passing week we brought in what we had to show Mike and got feedback on what needed to be adjusted for each scene. For most of the scenes it was a lot of making sure that the arms and body of Gumball and Lollipop followed through with the action that they were doing and keeping the stretchiness of the limbs alongside some changes to the overall action that was going to be in a scene or some major changes to the animation of a scene to make it more stretchy or to make an action appear less awkward.
—Scene 2-Secondary Animation – V1—
—Scene 2-Secondary Animation – V4—
—Scene 25-Secondary Animation – V1—
—Scene 25-Secondary Animation – V7—
This stage of the process took the longest to complete due to the amount of adjustments needed to make the scene look right and have the correct motions that Danielle and I wanted. The major issue that we ran into was the fact that we started to fall a bit behind schedule but knew that we could make up for lost time during the lineart and colouring stages of the animation. It was crucial that we spent a lot of time in this stage of the animation process as once we were done with it we would be focusing on cleaning up the line work of the scenes not the animation so it was best to make as many adjustments as we could during this stage even if we did fall behind schedule a bit.
When all the secondary animation was done and all adjustments were made based on peer assessment from Danielle or myself and feedback form Mike and the tutors were completed I compiled a rough cut of the secondary animation and presented it to Mike so that he could see what the full rough animation looked like.
—Secondary Animation Compilation V1—
After the feedback session from Mike, Danielle and I adjusted some of the scenes based on said feedback before creating another compilation of animation with the adjustments. This time Danielle added some music to the rough cut that she found on Adobe Stock called ‘Toon’ that we considered for the soundtrack of the final animation.
—Secondary Animation Compilation V2—
Now that we are happy with the secondary animation timing and movements we begin the process of cleaning up the secondary animation with lineart.
Lineart, Clean Up and Colour
Using the secondary animation that we created, Danielle and I added lineart to our scenes using the colour, size and brushes shown in the style guide to ensure that both Danielle and my lineart looked cohesive. Moreover, we used an outline brush to create the arms and necks of the characters which sped up our progress and kept the lines and spacing of the pieces consistent. Due to time restraints and falling behind schedule a bit, I took on a few of Danielle’s scenes and added lineart and colour to them. Once the lineart was done we shifted focus to cleaning up the lines and any overlapping pieces before moving onto colouring in our line work. The colouring stage was the quickest to complete out of all that stages of the project thus far which was a good thing as the deadline was fast approaching.
Once everything was lined and coloured we exported our scenes from Krita with transparent backgrounds so that they could be placed on top of the backgrounds and the final film could be edited together.
—Scene 23A Lineart, Clean Up and Colour—
—Scene 33 Lineart, Clean Up and Colour—
Reflection
I thoroughly enjoyed the process of creating the secondary animation with Danielle and found all tutor feedback of small or large adjustments made a huge difference to the quality of the animation that we have been able to produce, however, some aspects of the animation took longer than executed and put strain on our project but Danielle and I communicated and shared the work when needed to complete everything for the approaching deadline. After the secondary animation was completed the rest of the stages went by much quicker which was good and put us back on schedule. The final stage of this project is post production which I am most looking forward to as I can not wait to see what all our work put together in a polished form will look like.