Jungle Explorer final render

Jonos group have kindly given me the scene I animated for them with sound and fully rendered as well! I am even more proud of the animation now that I have seen what it looks like fully rendered and textured

WALTZ FINISHED!!!!!

I have added more secondary animation for the husbands arms and ginettes, if I was to tweak anything else it may be the way the husbands hand unravels but Im not sure if Im being too picky but I am really happy with the way this scene has evolved

Scene 7 skirt alterations

This is the first skirt test, it is still a bit slow and unrealistic with the speed of her turn



This still needs a bit of touching up



This is the Final test for the skirt! The spin around was made quicker and the turning of Ginettes head before the body also makes it a more realistic action, I am very happy with this final test

Scene 7 changes

Seeing that we are ahead of schedule in our rendering I have taken the opportunity to sort out a couple of little bits to the waltz animation. I want to give the husband a bit more swagger as he is introduced in the scene, I also want to sort out the turn by ginette when they first meet. I will be able ti finish this in a day

Scene 4 to 5

Aminata has asked me to finish off the animation from scene 4 to 5 as the granny is walking out onto the balcony and wlaks up the step ladder! There isnt much time left so I have finished animating the scene 2day. I am pleased with her movements.



This is what the scene looks like with the proper camera move

Final Jungle Animation

I have finished animating and Jono is really happ with the outcome of the animation and so am I

Run Jump and Swing Final

I was animating the rope swing on every frame and that is why it was very fast. I slowed down the animation and also put more emphasis into the secondary animation of the rope which helped to add effect to the swing, and so I am really happy with how the end part of the animation has turned out

Run Jump and Swing

This is the second part of the animation, now the timing of the rope swing is off and needs a bit more tweaking. I feel that it is really comming together though. I am making good time also with the deadline for the animation which is 2m

Jungle animation pt3

This is the run with part of the swinging in the cave. I am glad it is looking good with the timing

jumping on the rope test

Jungle animation pt2

This is the run cycle with the correct timing with the rocks falling down!

Jungle animation pt1

Hada meeting with Jono's group who are doing the Aztec Jungle animation, they asked me to help them do a scne where theor explorer is running through the scene dodging the rocks and then swinging on the rope to the other side, so this is the run cycle I did today. The deadline is for 2days time os there will be a lot required in a short amount of time

Waltz Finished!!!

This is what I have sent aminata, that is scene 7 finished

Waltz Animation Pt 2

The progress I have made has been a massive one! I have really got to grips with the waltz itself and have finished the basis for the dance. Little things like the heads and the hands and ginetees skirt is something I am going to tackle but overall I am pleased with the animation

Waltz Animation Pt 1

I have made a lot of progress today and 2m! I will be trying to add part of the waltz if not all of it 2m! We need this aniamtion finished quite quickly so it is another tight deadline but I enjoy the challenge

Waltz research

Last part of Scene 2 Pt5

I have changed the arms swing and I am really happy with it now

Last part of Scene 2 Pt4

There has been something about this scene that really been bugging me. Aminata said she liked it now that Marcel does not look around again but I realised that his arms are not in sync with his legs. The opposite arms should swing in comparison with the legs. I am going to change that

Last part of Scene 2 Pt3

Aminata has got back to m and said to make marcel not look around again as he has already looked back at the granny once before in the last cut of the scene which is a good suggestion. This will break the animation up and not make it look so repetative. This is what I have done now with Marcel not looking round again

Last part of Scene 2 Pt2

I have animated Marcel walking to the balcony and opening it and I have sent it to Aminata, so I am waiting for some feedback. The secondary animation was quite difficult this time as when he turns his head his big ears were going through his body, so I had to spend a lot of time making sure that didnt happen but at the same still making the ears look convincing

Last part of Scene 2 Pt1

The last part of this scene is when Marcel opens the balcony door and walks and sits on the balcony. It is going to be a similar animation to the last part although because his nose is so big I am going to have to animate his face pointing in the opppsite direction when opening the door. Doing this though I feel adds to the character of marcel, in terms of he knows his features are not in proportion but he has certain ways of doing things which are unique to Marcel

marcel walking to the balcony sad FINAL

I have touched up the animation a bit since the last one! I have added more secondary animation and a nicer swing in the arms and hips

Marcel walking to the balcony sad

This is quite a short scene with the camera cut, so I tried to makme sure that you get a real sense of sadness from marcel as he walks to the balcony. I have added secondary animation to the ears and have drooped his head to give a sense of sadness



I have sent it to Aminata to see what she thinks

Ginette Sad in Chair

This is the animation for ginette sad in the chair just before she turns around and see's marcel juggling trying to make her happy



This is the whole next scene put together and the animation of ginette really helps compliment marcel

juggling animation pt 2

I have made marcel more expressive in the animation now. I am happy with the juggle and I am now going to add ginettes animation to the scene. Overall the juggle has been quite tricky getting the timing right to fit the timing of the scene before the camera cuts. Marcels nose extrudes quite a distance away from his face which has made his posing for the juggle rather difficult. I looked at many different styles of juggle and am happy with the outcome.

juggling animation pt 1

This is my juggling animation but the grandma isnt in the animation yet because I want to focus on the juggling and then animate the grandmas reaction to it. I think I am going to try and show more in marcel the fact that he wants to please ginette and make her happy

Marcel Walking In Scene 2 contd

After much thought I liked the timing of the walk I just thought that some of the character was taken out of marcel so I added a little bounce back into his walk and I am very pleased with the outcome of it now, so now I can start animating the juggling scene which is next

Marcel Walking In Scene 2

I have got rid of the bounce and Im happy with how it looks now

Aminata saw this animation and thought there was a bit too much bounce to the animation. I kind of agree with her and will be toning the bounce down a tad....

Marcel Walking in Playblasts

More Juggling Research

Juggling Research

I have got scene 2 to animate now and the hardest part of this scene I think will be to animate the dog juggle!!! So I am researching different styles and timing.

Lighting Tests

This test is with a point light, using final gather! I have given the shadows a dark grey colour, and in the camera setting I have used a light blue colour for the background and in the mental ray settings ive switched on raytracing shadows




















Above I have swicthed the light from a point light to an ambient light. Its a lot softer but possibly too dark maybe




















This is with the point light and as you can see the grannys face is far too bright which is why I much prefer the ambient light instead

Weighting Finished

I have dealt with a few weighting issues in the past week, but I have tried to be systematic about it. I have asked people like Dave Bates for advice and have ploughed through it. I have weighted it in my opnion well enough to be animted. I am quite happy with it

Problem Solved Pt 2

I went into the component editor and I found out what part of the body the vertices were assigned to. SO I made sure that those vertices only moved when the neck moved..

Weighting problem solved pt 1

I put ginette in vertex mode and then picked the problem vertices, so that I will be able to go intot he component editor and give them the appropriate weight..

Weighting problem

When I moved the arms vertices on the neck always went out of joint. I therefore had to put the arms in extreme poses to get to the problem. I have used the component editor for alot of the weighting and that is what I am going to be using to solve this problem.

I have decided not to ask Giles to help with the weighting as I want to solve these problems myself

Weighting arghhhhhhhhhhhh

I have been struggling with weighting for about 2weeks now and I think I am going to try and get Giles from the other group to help witht the weighting so that we can start animating

Set Driven Keys for the Legs

I have also done set driven keys for both feet. When the foot roll option in the channel box is at -10 the heel faces up. When its at 0 its in a neutral position. And when its at +10 the foot is on its tip toe

Set Driven Keys for the Character

This is one of the set driven keys I have done for both the left amd the right wrist! When you hight the Fist option in the channel box and middle mouse click and drag on the screen the fist changes from an open hand to a closed fist

RIgging Complete

The rigging is complete now and I have attached the skeleton to the body now, there are several weighting issues that need to be addressed now

Rigging Almost Finished

All the contraints and the set driven keys have been done, I am just going through the rig now and tweaking little things, like cleaning up the line editor etc

Rigging Update

The IK FK constraints and have been done as well set driven keys for the wrists

Still Rigging

I have completed the controls for the top half of the body and the legs now. I am moving on to the arms. I will have both IK and FK controls for the arms so it gives the animator the freedom of choice to animate.

Rigging Contd

So far I have given the character knee controls and constraints and have started to work up the body to the head. There will be constraints used for the different parts of the body

Rigging Young Ginette

Ive started rigging young ginette and so far so good. I will be adding bones in the skirt so that it moves with young ginette.

Final Animatic

After lots of discussion we as a group made lots of tweaks and improvements on my first animatic and after our meeting on wednesday this si the final outcome

1st animatic

Personal Timetable

	March	April	May	June
Week 1	Animatic/Blendshapes	Animation	Animation
Week 2	Animatic/Blendshapes	Animation	Animation
Week 3	Rigging/Rendering Layers	Animation
Week 4	Animation/Rendering Layers	Animation

Powerful walkcycle pt3

The animation needed just a little bit more tweaking but Adam said he really liked the last one I sent him he just wanted a bit more swing in the arms and a bit less head movement rotation. So I have made these changes and this is the final out which I am happy about! The walk does suite the war atmosphere this scene is meant to be depicting

Powerful walkcycle pt2

I got some really good feedback from Adam and I have taken his advice into consideration such as using the swing of the shoulders more and the timing was a bit too fast in my last playblast to him so I have made it slightly slower and animated more of the head as well in this playblast.

Powerful walkcycle pt1

I have added the weight to the bounce of the walk, and have sent it to Adam so I am awaiting feedback

Powerful walkcycle

This is a playb;ast of the foundation of the walk. I am going to be adding more weight and see what Adam thinks of it

Theres a War in Wunderland

Adam has asked fro some help on his film and I have accepted to do some animation for him. He just wants a powerful walkcycle for one of his characters, so I will be working on that in the next couple days

Blendshapes for Accordonist

occlusion test 2

What I have done for this test is demonstrate in the same image the difference certain tweaks make to the occlusion. Here I have done a test changing the colour of the shadows, which is very handy because having a different colour for the occlusion could help give our film a totally different look. I have also done tests with the occlusion option reflective switched on which is the bottom left of the image and the bottom right of the image is with reflective turned off. These are with max distance 20 and spread at 0.800

occlusion test 1

Above this is test is with no max distance set and the spread is at standard 0.800. Below I have tweaked the max distance to 10 and the shadows have become a lot softer and evenly spread

Ambient Occlusion Pass

Ambient Occlusion is something that we may or may not use in the final rendering process of our film, but it is something worth looking at so I have just done a few tests and played around with a few settings. Occlusion adds reaism to the final render. It adds another layer of detail that will help add an extra bit of quality to the final render.

To render the occlusion render pass once again you select everything in the scene and create a lyer. Right click on the layer and in presets maya already has the setting occlusion. Click on the occlusion preset and the whole scene will turn black. In the render you will see your objects but in the occlusion settings you can adjust how much shadow you want to be displaced, the colour of the shadows, how much detail you want the occlusion to portray. The higher the spread and the max distance settings are the longer each frame will take to render.

Rendering in Layers pt4

Secondly the reason why the floor is very important in this scene alsi is because without a floor of some sort your not going to get the shadw of the object. When you click on the floor you go to render stats but this time only turn off cast shadows becuase it will be recieving the shadows.

Finally in the render layer option you click on the flag icon and then in the render pass options you change the tick from Beauty to Shadow. Now the shdow render layer is set up and when you click on render you should get this balck and white image.

Rendering in Layers pt3

Shadow Pass

In the shadow layer I have picked what I want in the scene so it will be the shapes, the floor which is vital and the light which is also important. YOu need to decide vitally what int he scene you will have recieve light and what will be casting shadows. The objects in the scene will need to cast shadows, and as we dont want to see the objects in the render and only the shadow of the object you also need to click primary visibility off.

You select the animation and change the setting from display to render. You then select the icon with a blue ball which will create your render layer. You can delete or add anythin to this particular layer. Once you select your layer all you will see is the aniamtion and whatever else you have selected to add to that layer.

Rendering in Layers pt1

I have set up just 3 simple 3d shapes to demonstarte how the rendering in layers works. The first screen shot shows the scene set up and the second I have added colours to the shapes and a light in the scene which is vital to the shadow pass and the animation pass

Rendering in Layers

Aminata mentioned to me to look into rendering in layers. We are thinking of using this rendering technique because for what we want to do it will save more time rendering such things like the animation,shadows of characters,background and possibly an occlusion pass seperately and then compositing them together again in after effects. I have looked at a tutorial on www.tutorialcentral.com on this process, and it seems to be quite straight foward.

Flower Pot Holders with Pots on Building

Flower Pot Holders with Pots

Props: Flower Pot Holders

More Props: Bins

House 4