Lighting Test 1 - 2113

Below are some general test for 2113. Below are not actual shots to be used with the animated film, just simple lighting test (Just a directional light + area light)

Same shot using the inbuilt sun plugin with area light

Actual screen shots - last shot (various lighting)

Here is a POV shot from Molly looking at London 2113 (Please note: Some texture have yet to be done)

At this stage these are only test and will likely change within the next week or so. More to come

Week 10 Part 2 – In-betweens, clean up and Lip Synch Start

This week has been quite productive even though it may not be so clear. That is simply because I have spent my time cleaning up the animation to comply with the fundamentals of animation such as ease in and out, arcs and correct body movements.

This has been quite fun and interesting. By doing this, I can start to see my character have full life and emotions through body language. However, it has been simply placing a few in-betweens and thinking it complete. When going from blocking mode to animation mode (stepped to spline in Maya), the entire dynamics change and consequently so to how the body moves. During this transition I have noticed that Molly moves far greater than what I would have liked, almost like she is too frigidity. Upon viewing by myself and Sean, I started to clean up every scene, to eliminate any faults and to create quiet period where Molly isn’t moving. Upon completion I sense the performance is ok. One key aspect of the performance decided during this stage was to learn forward to emphasis certain words. This provides Molly with strength, power and anger towards Bradford.

At the moment, I consider the entire animation for Molly to be good but not great. To make this great, I would consider small tweaks will do the job nicely, such as blinking, modify the eyebrows a tad more, finger movements (if seen in camera) and very slight head/eye movements in still moments. However, the most important aspect to allow Molly to come alive is the lip-syching.

Lip-syching is a task I extremely enjoy, as this completes the journey of making the character come alive. With ‘Suffragette Molly ‘, I decided to start with scene 5 as this was only one line by both characters involve. This way I can see what works and what doesn’t. Upon doing Molly, I saw a few small and minor problems but as always I went back to the reference model to do the necessary changes and as always to see all the mouth positions and how Jess mouth movements work. So far this has been extremely helpful.

Even though most of the week has been busy and trouble free, I still had some trouble with the fingers. Upon finding out I had rigged it incorrectly, and having no time to fix it, I have decided to cheat and I would either hide any of the problems or be very quick with it (in scene 3 when she points her hands move extremely quickly).

Generally, this week has been very pleasing, and seeing Molly coming alive has been exciting and enjoyable. While it may not be perfect once lip-syching and any necessary small changes occur, I believe the animation will be finished and this will give me time for me to do the animation for the other characters which will be a lot simpler task.  

Week 10 Part 1 – Evolution so far

Ten weeks have passed and so far I have mixed emotions about how I am going so far. Having a wide range of emotions going day to day sometimes changing a million times in a short space of time. At this stage I would have liked to have a lot more done, I would like to have had some of the rendering done for certain shots.

I believe this comes down to a number of reasons. The main reason for this as mentioned previously is rigging. At this stage, while I am confident doing basic rigs, I have reconstructed Molly many times which is holding me back to do my favorite aspect of the project, animation. While I recognize rigging is a major and important component of 3D animation, at this stage I do lack confidence in this area and more practice is definitely required.

When it comes to paint weighting the rig/character, I also lack in confidence. I have redone Molly so many times I have lost count, to a point it has got frustrating and slowed me down quite considerably. Rigging and weights are two of the most frustrating aspect I have found so far in this entire project. I dreaded it at the beginning and adopted the script to suit my lack in confidence and this has proven to be correct. This is one of the reasons why I have asked Seon to work on the rig for Dr John, The Butler and Bradford, as they are simple and aren’t that complex.

Despite my lack of confidence in the rigging and having done many minor changes during this period (many of the problems with the rig has been discovered during this period which has led to frustrating and stress), the animation process has been fun, exciting and enjoyable. This is an aspect I enjoy and have confidence, spending hours blocking, doing in-betweens, clean up and tweaking. This is where I see the film coming alive and I can see this with Molly. Over a few days, I blocked all scenes, and then worked on the in-betweens. It was also during this period that I have really enjoyed doing clean ups (it has been frustrating at times, mostly with the eyes, fingers and arms), making sure it complies with the principles of animation. However, if I have found problems with some aspects of the rig, if possible I have decided to cheat and hide any problems behind something be that a body, wall or furniture or not have them in shot. This is a decision I made during the animation to hide my rigging problems or difficulties. As of week 10, most of the animation for Molly has been finished, and has been enjoyable. I would like to have done this a few weeks ago to achieve a better animation look, but the animation so far is good but not great. However, if time permits (which will not be the case) I hope to improve Molly’s animation, but as my other characters haven’t yet been animated (despite all three having simple animation) I can only assume I will work on this for at least one more work. But now it’s time for lip sych, which I also enjoy and will be starting by the beginning of week 11. I only hope that roughly two weeks will be enough time for this task.

When looking over my entire experience so far, it’s been mixed. I have really enjoyed and loved the entire process, but have been overwhelmed by what has been involved. I have enjoyed the animation and working with my actress Jess, but the aspect of rigging has been a nightmare, that I wish to forget. But as I have been in a team of two (since mid-year), I have to multi-task (rigging and animation), and at times this has put a lot of stress onto myself to get the task right and on time. Seon has done a fine job with modeling and I have asked her to work on the rigging so I can focus on the animation, which I prefer and love. I, like everyone else would like to have been better and it hasn’t helped with my lack in confidence day to day, worried that something could go wrong and everything stuffs up. It has at times been a mental struggle trying to cope with about five tasks at once and aspects of the project have suffered for example the administration of tasks and contacting the relevant people. This, of course, would have been far worse if I was working on my own so Seon has been a great help in that regards.

Overall, this post might sound negative but I need to understand and look back over the last 10 weeks and examine how I have gone so far. I may be worried that I will not be able to finish everything I have hoped to achieve but I will do what I can by the end of the year to achieve my best. I am hard on myself but that is who I am.

Week 9 Week progress: Animation/problems

Since my last blog on Sunday, most of the animation has been focused on the face and hands, but as mentioned before, painting the weights, this time for the fingers has been an issue, and like before is only discovered when starting the animation. The main issue is the fingers don’t move like real fingers. This issue may have been solved if I placed a bone close to the four main fingers, however as time is short, I will cheat and either hide it or not focus on them for my camera shots.

 

Animation has been fun. I have finished (on Monday) the first animation pass, with the wiggle and panic being the last shot. From Tuesday to hopefully Sunday, the second animation pass will be focusing on facial expressions, eye movements and hand/finger expressions.

 

I have had some trouble during this pass, not so much with facial expressions (as I completed hundreds of test during the painting weights stage), but has been with the eyes. The earliest problem was the eyes weren’t staying with the body as I was moving the body around. Having tried a number of tests, I was still stuck and unsure what the problem was.

 

Having asked Wei on Tuesday what the problem was, it was relatively simple, as the joint had to position in the centre of the eye, with a control just in front, with these two having an aim constraint. My main problem originally was that I had a bone, but was on the edge as thus the eye was just rotating from that point. The main problem was I had no joint and parent/aim constraint the sphere as the eye. This seemed to work OK from the start but as more test continued, I knew it wouldn’t quite work.

 

The eye aim has been the most frustrating aspect of this week. This is courtesy of a fair bit of head movements (especially when Molly is concerned/worry and frustrated). How at times I am animating on ones, but if it helps then that is OK. However during clean up and tweaking, some of these may end up being deleted. So far on ones, the eyes are moving a fair bit more than what I would like, but then again, during clean up this should improve.

Week 8_ Animation start

Having the week off has been the most productive. I have been working on the blocking animation for Molly. I did have some frustration, but generally it has been fun, exciting and interesting.

 Generally, I have been quite happy with the progress of this animation. I have been using many of the references recorded of Jess for Molly. This has been extremely helpful and I have used a number of components from various shots for the same line. This has made the acting performance far more interesting, and I hope this reflects the performance and how Molly ponders.

 In terms of problems, I have had some small problems, once again with weighting, and these have only been discovered while I have been doing my animation. This has been interesting as there have been many aspects that I tested while I doing rigging/weight painting that seemed to work but didn’t quite work when doing the actual animation. What I have discovered that weight painting never stops and is an ongoing process. Another problem has been that when doing a playblast, one of the cameras crashes Maya whereas the others don’t. So I tried it with one of the established cameras and moved it earlier, however this too crashed. I do have sound, so I would think it’s the sound rather than the camera. Will try again tomorrow (Monday).

Analysing and reflecting what has been achieved so far with the animation, it has been fun, and enjoyable, a lot less stressful and far more enjoyable than rigging and painting weights. I can start seeing my ideas and videos references coming alive by seeing personality coming through my animation and Molly. Yes I have been bogged down with some aspects but generally that’s more to do with trying to make key poses perfect now than worrying about it later down the track. Having a number of video references has been key and important to getting the animation right.

 

Generally, this is the start of the fun aspect of the process, seeing the character coming alive and my goal is to have basic Molly animation finish ASAP. 

Videos to come ASAP (due to the size of the files)

 

 

 

 

 

Week 7

This week was a quiet one as I was finalizing other assignments, but no less interesting. I finally finalised the Molly rig after more complications in particular the hands and face. This was to do with weight painting and was only discovered after starting basic animation blocking, which I started on Wednesday.

 

This animation blocking was only really basic, involving Molly and Sally Anne. Molly was looking around in 2113 and riding in the hansom carriage.  At this stage it’s only a start and in my opinion while the problems with the weights in the hands and face was extremely frustrating, I did work it out and I hope problems with Molly will disappear so I can truly focus on the animation of Molly for all scenes starting from Monday.  

 

The biggest and most important factor that has happened this week occurred on Friday, this being the animation reference with Jess Collet, who is voicing Molly. This session was very productive despite a shaky start with a slight miss understanding. Once we both settled in, filming went smoothly without any hassles.  

 

With week 8 being a break week, this coming week will be extremely productive. My goal is to get all of the blocking done for Molly and even I will be looking at starting the in-betweens and possibly lip sych by weeks end.