WEEK  3 – UV MAPPING AND ANIMATION IN MAYA

 

3D Digital Literacy:

 

During Week 3, we had a lecture on how to UV map using Maya and adding textures to our models. We learnt how to use the UV editor to add UV mapping onto models, and how to align the map textures accurately onto the object. We also found out how to scale and correct the mapping and texture accurately onto an object.

 

UV Mapping Examples:

 

 

I was able to UV map the dice easily as I understood how each face lined up with the UV mapping and that I only needed to correct the edges in order to make the texture fit onto the die face accurately. I also found it simple enough to UV map the cylinder as it was a basic shaped and only needed to figure out how to correct any stretching or misalignment with the top and base.

(WIP About Barrel and Arm)

 

 

 

Animated Narratives:

 

Over the rest of the week, my group had completed our Animated Short’s, Lost and Found, presentation. Neave volunteered to edit the slides and voice overs together on Tuesday when we had made sure to complete the presentation early so she would not be under any pressure editing. Then, we submitted it and our group assessments.

 

YouTube Link to our Presentation:

Group 10 Presentation ‘Lost & Found’

 

I believe our groups presentation was really effective and creative, and we also communicated well when creating it. I found my group incredibly hardworking, helpful and independent with our own parts, and really enjoyed working with them!

For my parts, I focused on the second minute and a half of the animation where I primarily looked at how the Hero’s Journey was portrayed, as well as the music and cinematography. My part was the build-up to the action where everything had begun to go wrong, and the characters had to face multiple difficulties. I had to cut out a lot of my part to make sure I did not ramble or speak for too long and may have spoken slightly fast due to wanting to say as much as possible.

 

To give our presentation character and a visual aid, we included images in our slides and created talk sprites/avatars to show who was speaking. Here are a couple of mine:

 

 

FEEDBACK:

 

During the morning of our Animated Narratives lecture, the class watched each presentation.

The lecturers gave us feedback telling us that our presentation was really good and that we could have introduced the animation at the beginning, but that we had good visual presentation and analysis, touching on a lot, such as the Hero’s Journey.

They also said that we could have considered how the animation was a stop motion film and looked at the material used. There were certain aspects of the film, such as the Fox getting heavier as she gets wetter because she’s made of yarn, that could have been analysed. Also, that we could have said how material and the stop motion medium affected the production.

In each of our parts, we should have discussed the Narrative first and then Cinematography. They also told us to keep our slides visual more than text, however, our avatars sometimes took away from visual of the animation screenshots and images for viewers. They suggested that next time we should shrink the avatars or make them linework, so the colour is less eye catching. Yet, they thought the content was good and very clear.

 

 

After lunch, we had a lecture with Alec where he told us about our other assignments to create 2 short animations using the Monty Rig, the first studying the weight of motion / body mechanics of the character – for example jumping. The second animation should be a study in conveying emotion / personality of character – For example scared / happy.

Assignment 3 is a 15-30 second Animated short based on the theme of ‘Adventure‘,
due for Friday 7th May, which is to be made in groups.

 

 

During the class, we watched Sarah’s lecture on Animation Production, in which we found out how to begin designing a short film, animation pipelines, and also animation planning. We went over the methods and stages of producing an animated short film, and what a good short film should contain.

 

Towards the end of class Alec gave us some lectures to watch and a few YouTube videos and tutorials on setting up and animating in Maya. It is all mostly introductions to the main animating tools, such as how the animation timeline worked as well as creating keyframes, and we were given the task to watch these and have a go at animating ourselves to get a feel for the animation basics. We also went over timing and spacing in animation again, however this time in 3D and we were introduced us to the graph editor.

 

Alec also made a video we could watch and follow along of him animating a bouncing ball in Maya, which I found difficult at first getting the hang of animating, however the concepts were very similar to 2D animation, so I eventually understood and could also create it.

 

We were also recommended AnimDojos introduction to character animation in Maya as well:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt_lF_ZO8KqceYdXNDAWRrJRdPoV9tGol

As well as shown their cool little 2.5D rig that can be downloaded here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m4qrg9ijxl0nf0t/AACUyw7yGu63sp54WsTyeWJia?dl=0%20

 

GROUP WORK:

During the lecture we were sorted into groups of 4-5 people for the animated short assessment and tasked with creating a 30 second long 3d animation using the theme “Adventure”. I joined a group with Neave, Jodie, Joseph and Wren, then we all began voicing our initial ideas and stories of what our animated short could potentially be about as well as what characters, settings and props we could have.

 

Our Group decided to make a Discord server so we could communicate while working, where we made a server with separate channels for specific parts of the animation production and planning such as story ideas and scripts, concept art for characters, props and environment, and also for the storyboards and animatic.

 

We also then called during the week to make a Miro Board to brainstorm ideas so we could have a rough idea of where we should start. We started of with a basic spider diagram showing the main themes associated with “Adventure”, as well as analysing the Hero’s Journey once again.

Our group decided to keep the animation mostly pretty simple, as we are all beginners to Maya, especially trying to animate, and so we focused on using our skills of concept design and ideas to make a simple idea interesting and somewhat unique and fun. We did not want to overestimate our skills creating an incredibly complicated animation that would not be of quality work at this time in our education.

We were also warned to avoid full biped characters in this animation, so we looked at possible ideas for simple character design ideas that we could work with. Our favourite ideas for possible characters were a worm on a string, a rubber duck, snow bunnies, or a slime. Jodie’s slime idea was the most promising and had a lot of potential, as we all really liked the story concept of the slime changing appearance as it let us all have a go at creating characters while also keeping it simple and cute! That then became our definite story foundation and we continued sharing ideas for it over the weekend.

 

 

I also continued drawing and designing more ideas for my staff for the first assignment. I began looking at staffs and weapon designs from various media and videogames.

One of my main inspirations was Final Fantasy X, an RPG game, where one of the main characters has a staff that changes design throughout the game.

 

I also looked at Okami, another video game, for its weapon and world designas I love the art and style of the game and wanted to perhaps create a staff that could be found in the game.

 

 

Tsukuyomi from Okami, as modelled by daemongrave on SketchFab: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/tsukuyomi-28197e3ae5e0480b980318db002658eb

 

I also looked at various staff designs and 3D artists that further helped me in my staff model concept design:

 

These are my cleaned-up staff designs that I came up with that I liked most!