Below shows the final cinematic.
Saturday, 25 April 2015
Finshing
After rendering all the scenes and Mitch putting them together with some great sound effects we were happy with the end product. I feel like Mitch and I worked well together and didn't leave it to the last minute which was a great help. I am pretty proud with what I have achieved in this module and realised that I really like animation and could see myself going into that area of the industry, I have thoroughly enjoyed this module even the dreaded trax editor.
Below shows the final cinematic.
Below shows the final cinematic.
Rendering
The next step after getting all the scenes ready was to start rendering off each scene which then we would give the final product to Mitch as he wanted to put it all together in Adobe Premier due to his previous experience.
We had decided that I would render off the introduction scene and the shuriken scene and then Mitch would render his back stab and the other scenes as his were smaller and he could then start on putting it all together. I got started on the lip sync batch render however it wasn't long till we hit some problems. The first problem that we ran into was that once I sent over the batch render of the lip sync to Mitch he realised that his characters mouths weren't actually opening it was just the beards moving which I didn't notice due to the fact I thought that it was meant to look like, if it was my own animation I would have noticed it as I would have known what it was meant to look like. One Mitch had fixed the animation he then gave it me back which I restarted the render.
Another complication we ran into was that we couldn't get the render setting correct at first which was making the background white which was making the whole scene looking different to what we were going for, however once we fiddled with some of the setting we were able to rectify the problem.
One final problem which cropped up at the wrong time was that on the cover look scene which was the final one needed to be rendered, for some weird reason it wouldn't let either me or Mitch batch render the scene as a whole so we decided to split it 50 / 50 and render 60 frames one by one which was the only way we found around the problem. Still to this day we have no idea why it wouldn't batch render the scene.
We had decided that I would render off the introduction scene and the shuriken scene and then Mitch would render his back stab and the other scenes as his were smaller and he could then start on putting it all together. I got started on the lip sync batch render however it wasn't long till we hit some problems. The first problem that we ran into was that once I sent over the batch render of the lip sync to Mitch he realised that his characters mouths weren't actually opening it was just the beards moving which I didn't notice due to the fact I thought that it was meant to look like, if it was my own animation I would have noticed it as I would have known what it was meant to look like. One Mitch had fixed the animation he then gave it me back which I restarted the render.
Another complication we ran into was that we couldn't get the render setting correct at first which was making the background white which was making the whole scene looking different to what we were going for, however once we fiddled with some of the setting we were able to rectify the problem.
One final problem which cropped up at the wrong time was that on the cover look scene which was the final one needed to be rendered, for some weird reason it wouldn't let either me or Mitch batch render the scene as a whole so we decided to split it 50 / 50 and render 60 frames one by one which was the only way we found around the problem. Still to this day we have no idea why it wouldn't batch render the scene.
Trax editor
To help put all the scenes together Mitch and I tried to understand how to use the trax editor, after a few hours researching tutorials and using the information provided we had a go at clipping off our animations. I managed to clip all of my animations and I put them together into one scene to try and get to grips with the different tools that it has to offer such as the blending tools.
After putting the clips together Mitch informed me that he was having all types of problems with the trax editor as at first it wasn't letting him export it but he found a way around it in the end which enabled us to keep progressing with our cinematic. We then put all the different scenes together such as the intro lip sync scenes and the following action scenes, we did this by exchanging the clips and rigs that each other needed and then set the scenes around them with the use of the trees from Eitvis.
After putting the clips together Mitch informed me that he was having all types of problems with the trax editor as at first it wasn't letting him export it but he found a way around it in the end which enabled us to keep progressing with our cinematic. We then put all the different scenes together such as the intro lip sync scenes and the following action scenes, we did this by exchanging the clips and rigs that each other needed and then set the scenes around them with the use of the trees from Eitvis.
Lip sync
Now that the main action scenes are staged and are ready to texture then render I concentrated on getting the lip sync made. After having a lengthy discussion with Mitch we decided that I would try and incorporate my soldiers hearing something in woods around and being a little spooked while Mitch would show his ninjas talking about the plan of attack. Looking around for a small amount of time I found the perfect scene for which I could use for my own lip sync, this was from a Game of Thrones episode when some of their soldiers were spooked by something in the woods which would match our overall cinematic perfectly. I found the audio that I needed which I then cut it down into an easily usable file.
After I had sorted out the audio I imported it into my maya scene which I had build a small little camp and then I position a few soldiers around showing that it was being used. It was at this stage we new that we had to find some better quality trees, luckily Eitvis had made some trees in his Spec 3D project so we decided to use those rather than taking up extra time to make our own from scratch, as soon as we put the new trees in, it made the scenes 10x better overall even without any textures or renders.
I wanted to concentrate on the main man for the lip sync, this was quite easy due to having the face controls near the head and the GUI is very easy to use. I started off getting the jaw opening and closing at the correct times, then moved onto putting in the specific phonemes for each of the sounds that come through the audio. One bad thing about using this audio is that he speaking pretty fast so its hard to get the mouth looking normal but I persevered and it all worked out in the end.
After I had sorted out the audio I imported it into my maya scene which I had build a small little camp and then I position a few soldiers around showing that it was being used. It was at this stage we new that we had to find some better quality trees, luckily Eitvis had made some trees in his Spec 3D project so we decided to use those rather than taking up extra time to make our own from scratch, as soon as we put the new trees in, it made the scenes 10x better overall even without any textures or renders.
I wanted to concentrate on the main man for the lip sync, this was quite easy due to having the face controls near the head and the GUI is very easy to use. I started off getting the jaw opening and closing at the correct times, then moved onto putting in the specific phonemes for each of the sounds that come through the audio. One bad thing about using this audio is that he speaking pretty fast so its hard to get the mouth looking normal but I persevered and it all worked out in the end.
Scenes
After making the 6 cycles we then went onto putting them together into the different scenes that we need to make our cinematic, I first started on the Shuriken kill as it was the most recent which I had made so it was still fresh and also I wanted to get Mitch's rig out of the way as I didn't really like to use it. Putting together the scene was quite easy as I just used two cycles which was the shuriken and the half death.
I decided to throw three shurikens in total and also put a little slow motion into the third one to try and break up the cinematic rather than just having normal shots. When put into practice it looks pretty darn good. Below shows the scene ready to have textures put onto it and then it can be rendered out and put into adobe premier.
After sending my guard walk and death over to Mitch I had the look over cover action scene to stage which I used Mitch's run cycle for the background ninja, this scene was quite easy to stage as it would all be shot from behind my character's head so that you can see his whole body movement.
I decided to throw three shurikens in total and also put a little slow motion into the third one to try and break up the cinematic rather than just having normal shots. When put into practice it looks pretty darn good. Below shows the scene ready to have textures put onto it and then it can be rendered out and put into adobe premier.
After sending my guard walk and death over to Mitch I had the look over cover action scene to stage which I used Mitch's run cycle for the background ninja, this scene was quite easy to stage as it would all be shot from behind my character's head so that you can see his whole body movement.
Shuriken kill
After the unexpected entry of Eitvydas into our group we had to switch up the cinematic a little so that he was able to put his animations in so I was tasked with making a new kill for the animation which I decided would match the animatic and create a ninja throwing ninja stars to kill a soldier.
I used the half cut of the death from the back stab as I staged it where he would get killed from the front. At first I put the main frames in where the ninja would spin around and pick the ninja stars from his back belt and proceed to throw them at his enemy. Most of his movement comes from his waist so this was the first thing that I set into place which I then sorted the rest of his arms making sure that all the movement was coming from the waist.
When I set the torso movement into place the rest of his body came through quite quickly as I had to follow the turning of the waist through the arms while his feet were planted on the ground for stability. One thing I found hard about this animation was that I wasn't using the rig that I had chosen to use at first, I was using the rig that Mitch had been using throughout the project so I had to match it so that all the ninjas were through the same rig.
I used the half cut of the death from the back stab as I staged it where he would get killed from the front. At first I put the main frames in where the ninja would spin around and pick the ninja stars from his back belt and proceed to throw them at his enemy. Most of his movement comes from his waist so this was the first thing that I set into place which I then sorted the rest of his arms making sure that all the movement was coming from the waist.
When I set the torso movement into place the rest of his body came through quite quickly as I had to follow the turning of the waist through the arms while his feet were planted on the ground for stability. One thing I found hard about this animation was that I wasn't using the rig that I had chosen to use at first, I was using the rig that Mitch had been using throughout the project so I had to match it so that all the ninjas were through the same rig.
New Team Member
This week we got a new team member which is around the Easter break due to the fact he didn't have a group and Mitch and I felt bad so we let him join seeing he was creating a ninja like animation already. However looking back this might have done more harm than good because now we would have to explain what our idea is while also trying to incorporate him into that idea by splitting up the animations. Hopefully this will work in the end.
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