Brushing up on the Basics

In response to my evaluation of last year's work and as stated in my reflective brief, I want to address some issues that I had in my animations.

The 'floaty' feeling of some of the actions in my previous animations just don't seem right. For example an arm moving through space may not feel like its falling in the arc it should or seem to be defying gravity a little. This is most evident in the Sword Swinging animation.

This semester I want to use the Graph Editor in more depth than I have been doing. It allows greater control of the 'tweening' between keyframes, it can be used to achieve the slow-starts, follow throughs and and accelerations I've been wanting to achieve but did not. The same keyframes can be used, but with the graph editor an animation can be greatly improved as you tweak the curves.

In the 'Creative Research' module I have completed a few exercises in order to better understand the graph editor. The following videos are from that module but I have analysed them here in relation to how this will help with my project for this module this semester.

Pendulum Swing

The first video shows the default unedited curves in the graph editor. The second video shows that by manipulating the curves changes the speed and acceleration of the motion of the object between those two keyframes.

It was in this exercise I discovered the "Weighted Tangents" mode that allows you to scale the size of the curve at a keyframe. Throughout last semester I was unaware this feature existed and was using extra keyframes to attempt to get the motion I wanted. Less keyframes means better control over the animation and therefore better quality animation.

Bouncing Ball

The second task I did was a simple ball bounce. Although I'd used the graph editor before to break tangents to create the realistic 'bounce', I was much more comfortable with achieving the motion I wanted. 

Head Turn

Although not a typical animation exercise, I also tried a head turning. Not only does the head turn but it rises in anticipation as he turns, I also added secondary action such as the blink.

Although simple, these exercises definitely improved my confidence in being able to use the graph editor. In addition, I also took more care into only keyframing what I needed to keyframe, for example only keying the rotation of the axis is moving and using the graph editor's curves to get something moving the way I wanted it to.

Let's Animate

For the first animation I want to make, I chose to animate a character standing up from a chair and reacting to an off-screen character.

I chose this as a further progression from the animation I did last semester where the character flips a table. The action of standing up from the chair here was not bad but I didn't think too much of it as my attention was focused on other actions in the animation.

Part of what my animations lacked in first semester was a sense they were a character living in that moment. As part of my reading into "Acting for Animators" by Ed Hooks, he says "Your character should play an action until something happens to make him play a different action."

I have began to block out the basic keyframes for this animation. Its only a short scene to begin with but I want to focus more on the subtly of the character's reactions to the scene he is in.
In this scene the main character is sitting in his chair, he is not pre-occupied with anything else so I feel any movement he does make should be in his head (as he only as his thoughts to keep him occupied at the moment) and his hands (fidgeting as he waits).

So far I only have the basics blocked out, its still a little fast so I'll correct the pacing next. I also need to finish off the arm movements.

Reflective Brief

For the learning contract I further clarified what I want to do for my project. I've copied over some of the information from the brief.


3D Animation Self-Improvement and Exploration
Continuing focus on 3D animation from last semester with the aim of self-improvement from evaluating past and ongoing work.

Design, experiment and evaluate animations throughout the semester for the purpose of self-improvement and exploration of style.

Personal Reflective Objective
Last semester I made a decent attempt at the animation coursework but there were notable problems including timing issues and not getting a sense of weight from the characters. As all 5 animations were worked on simultaneously and handed in at one time, I feel it would be more beneficial to work on one animation after the other to give myself time to reflect and evaluate on each animation before moving on. This also opens up the possibility to re-iterate and correct mistakes that are able to be fixed as I learn. Posting to Behance and my blog will allow me to get any feedback for things I miss as well as suggestions to improve.

Practical Reflective Objective
Improving as an animator is still my aim and I am aware there is a lot of room for improvement. I still want to focus on this rather than other fields. The best way to improve would be to continue with working on and completing animations. Without focusing too much on pre-production, I want to focus purely on the animated character, however should put some extra thought into their motives and feelings in order to achieve a more engaging outcome. I will work in short sprints and create animations “on the whim” to whatever action I feel like trying out. I will give myself about two weeks to complete an animation then I will evaluate the process, what I did right and what I could have done better.

Learning Objectives

1. Understanding the 3D animation pipeline
2. Utilising advanced technical features such as the graph editor
3. Appropriately using the principles of animation to develop and explore an animation style 
4. Applying acting techniques to improve performance in animation

Deliverables

1. Project Development Blog
• Will contain evidence of the practical processes, thoughts, storyboards and research undertaken which reinforce the project. The blog should contain a reflective log for approximately each week.
2. Behance WIP Posts
• I will have Work In Progress Posts on my Behance profile which will show updates of my work on a weekly basis as well as any feedback my peers have left and the responses I have had to this feedback.
3. Behance Portfolio
• My Behance.net profile will have a ‘CAP Semester 2’ Project which contains the final animations for the project.
4. Project Deliverables
• There should be a minimum of 5 animations in total. Each animation should be of around 5-10 seconds.

Project Idea

After speaking with Ryan (lecturer) I discussed a few ideas for my project this semester. I still want to focus on improving my animation skills. To do that, I should stick with animation and just keep working on stuff to hopefully get better at it.

An idea for a project came up which mainly focused on self improvement. Instead of working on 5 animations simultaneously and handing them in at the end, I would instead work on a series of animations one after the other evaluating and reflecting as I go. This will allow me progressively improve when identifying problems.

So I will animate in "sprints" perhaps spending a week or two on an animation, then review it in a video evaluation and highlight weaknesses I can work on and hope to tackle them on a future animation.

I want to also focus more on the animation than the planning of it. Although storyboards are useful in some cases, I feel more comfortable with animating "on the whim" where often I can make more appealing and humorous animations, this approach usually only works on small animations which suits me fine for this project.

Next steps here would be to write this up in more details for the learning contract, to evaluate work from last semester to identify problems to tackle and to begin to animate whatever comes to my head.

Semester 2 - Ideas and Proposal

Off the top of my head: I want to continue working in 3D animation, probably creating a series of animations (maybe include motion-capture, maybe focus on humour/style or something else).

Statement of Intent

Continue focusing on 3D animation to improve my skills and to create a series of animations (brief to be determined) that explores this.

Previous Semester

Last semester I focused a lot of 3D animation, it was my first attempt at animating in a 3D package. It required me to transfer my previous 2D and stop-motion animation skills into 3D as well as learn the ropes of the way 3D works. There's a lot more technical things to get a grip on like the graph editor and interface.

Reflective Evaluation

For this module I think I'd like to continue focusing on 3D animation. I think my strength lies in when I have a strong idea of my own (often humorous) that I see to the end.

I think my weaknesses lie mainly in the timing of the movement in the characters. I think the poses are suitable but could be more quick paced in moving to those poses and more emphasis of anticipation and follow through.

Proposed Project

The sort of project ideas I currently have in mind are mainly creating a series of animations. Similar to last semester they'd be short 5-10 seconds. I'd choose a focus such as creating these animations for a character in a game, or perhaps a few scenarios with a stylized animation technique such as squash and stretch. I may want to experiment with motion capture to create more realistic animations.

Progress Report - Week 14

Hello again, some more updates on my animations. Probably my last progress report before hand-ins.

The drunk guy walking into a pole animation is still pretty much done. I did some tweaks as he falls down to the ground at the end. From the timing it appears almost like ragdoll physics which is unexpected but I like it. Its definitely not realistic but for an animation its totally acceptable.

The sword swing animation has been really tough. I had to re-do the arm in FK because IK was just not working out. I've also discovered just having a character do anything that has them rotate their body is painful to do with 3D animation (I guess like any animated format?). Trying to keep the sword swinging 360 in a consistent pace is hard, I chose to use IK in the arms for that sole reason to keep the sword moving in nice timing but the arm snapping was much more distracting.

As the sword and/or body does sort of slow down from time I am going to work with this putting in some rotation in the body in the opposite direction (i.e. up and down) so that it appears as if he is fighting with the swords momentum. This may help to make the motion of the sword appear more natural.

I am pretty happy with the footwork though, this was also hard to predict as you can only do so much with animatics, you kind of have to work out where his feet go as his body spins and hopefully keep the balance correct. I think I did this quite well considering how I wasn't entirely satisfied with how the rest of the animation turned out.

The spell casting animation is one I am pretty happy with. Although not perfect the timing for this animation is a bit better, maybe too slow towards the end but I'll get to that in a minute. I like the hand actions and how the interact with the orb but I'm not too sure if they are "epic" enough for the brief (at least at the start) but there is a margin of change I seem to be getting away with for the rest of the animations so I should be fine.

As for the hands at the end, another Maya technical weirdness I had to contend with. The initial keyframes for the hands and arms wasn't getting the motion I wanted. Maya was doing that weird thing where the arms would flop around through the body before getting to their designated positions. I've fixed these type of problems before with the graph editor but this one was going to require more keyframes just to set the arms on the right path. I got them to do what I wanted in the end but I wanted to make them quicker. I will definitely try and correct this before hand-ins.

The stream jumping animation was interesting, I still struggle to animate any convincing run animation. It appears as if the character is being careful of her footing rather than running, which in a way works for this setting as it is hazardous after all. Again timing was an issue here, the actions themselves seemed decent enough, they were just sometimes a little jittery from the timing.

The story in the animation changed a little bit from the animatic, instead of losing balance on the rock the way the character's momentum was working I though it'd be better to just continue with the jump and using her arms and legs to balance hereself as she was doing that. I feel that was better than trying to stop to balance when it didn't really need it.

Finally, the desk flip animation has been working out fine. Although not the main purpose of the animation, the typing part worked surprisingly well. I was happy with the main action of the table flipping and I think this is one of my better animations for telling a little narrative. Having thought of this one last I think it was the result of learning from experience.

On a side note, rendering stuff in Maya 2013 is weird. I picked the exact same render settings as in Maya 2011 but it decides to do that weird thing where the video flickers and its cut in half and stretched diagonally? I don't even know how but... Maya. Anyway, I rendered the video uncompressed which works then used MPEG Streamclip to compress the videos right back down to an acceptable level.

Long post, well hand-ins are this week so I better get back to work.

Self Evaluation: Animation Power Centres

Note: The animation work done in this post was done for Creative Research. However the evaluation has been solely written for this blog.

In Creative Research I have been exploring power centres and how they are used in animation to help convey a mood or sense of personality or emotion in a character.

I decided to evaluate this task on these aims:

• Timing
• Posture
• Personality/Character

Timing

Power centres dictate where a character's energy comes from. A more characterised person will be more influenced by their power centre. Power centres also affect the rhythm of the character. A character with a low power centre will naturally have a slower tempo.

In each of the three animations I made sure to aim to capture the right rhythm for each power centre. I think this was done well, however in the second video (power centre in the waist) I think the timing was off and could have been better worked in with the movements of the waist and hips.

Posture

The aim was to have the power centre of each character affect their posture as well as the way their posture moves as they walk. I think this was done most effectively in the low power centre animation as the character's back seems to bend around the point. As he walks he also bounces around the power centre. This animation I think was most effective in conveying a sense of mood.

With the middle power centre there was not enough rotation in the waist and this would've better helped give him a posture more fitting to his character. In the high power centre animation I think I got the posture correct although I'd have liked to have tried more iterations to try out different ideas.

Personality/Character

My aim of the task was to see how power centres affect a character's personality. I think it was most effective where I let the power centre characterise the character more such as in the low power centre animation (first video) and was least effective where I didn't allow the character to be as influenced as much by it such as in the middle power centre (second video). I think the high power centre (third video) was a happy medium and was satisfactory for the aims but more iterations of that one power centre could have yield different personalities.

Overall I think this task was attempted well but I could have gone further with a lot of things. More iterations would be the best idea moving on and there's nothing stopping me from coming back to this task. I think it will help my animations this semester, particularly with the desk flip animation where the character is very tense where he types.