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.
Death
Considering a lot of my soldiers are getting killed I knew that I would have to do a death cycle, so I decided to make one by having him getting stabbed in the back as I thought that most ninjas like to come up behind their victim where they cant be seen to deliver the killing blow. I first put him into an idle pose that he can be transitioned from the other cycles when getting killed such as the guard walk, I have also put a dummy sword in which will help me get the timings correct for him falling over.
After setting his idle pose I then went straight in and put the sword through him to show him getting stabbed and then I sorted out how I wanted him to die. I wanted to put a little bit of personality and acting into his death so I decided to have the sword stay in his chest for a small period of time which at that point he would look down and realise the sword in him and then using the force of the sword being pulled back out he would fall backwards. I came to this conclusion by (not sounding weird) looking into people getting stabbed, mainly from movie references.
I wanted to try and get the feel of the clip above as I feel he shows a lot of emotion when he gets stabbed which is what I want to try and bring to the table. I feel like I have accomplished this in the shot below as you can see that the sword has lifted the soldier up off his feet from the force of his attack which is what I wanted to portray.
The hardest thing about creating this animation was getting him to fall correct after he has been stabbed. I didn't want to make his death too eccentric as I think that it would look out of place in our final cinematic. After a lot of different tries I managed to get the fall right which brought the whole animation together quite nicely.
After showing Mitch he really liked the animation however he said that it would be very noticeable if we were to use it over and over within the animation with all the people getting stabbed and killed the same way, so we decided that we needed another death. Rather than making a whole other animation I decided to cut the first bit off so that we had just the fall meaning we could use it in a variety of ways which can be seen below.
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Look over cover
Now that we have our animatic made we can purely see the types of cycles that we need to make for the final cinematic. One cycle that I wanted to concentrate on was having one of the soldiers look over cover into the woods due to hearing one of his comrades being attacked.
To do this I first set the first pose that I wanted my soldier to have as his base pose that he can come back to when he has looked over the cover which will match up the first and last frame. I chose to have him leaning his back up to a surface while standing in a crouched pose on his legs.
From this I wanted to get the look right so I chose he would look over his shoulder however still wanting him to not get caught so I looked into crouching over and how I can make the most from this cycle.
From doing some research I have decided that I want his eyes to slightly peer over the cover that he is behind so I will make sure that all his movements from the rest of his body are very subtle. I have also made sure that I have shown the distribution of weight throughout his legs and body so I subtlety made his torso go lower to the ground a split second before he goes up to look over the cover.
To do this I first set the first pose that I wanted my soldier to have as his base pose that he can come back to when he has looked over the cover which will match up the first and last frame. I chose to have him leaning his back up to a surface while standing in a crouched pose on his legs.
From this I wanted to get the look right so I chose he would look over his shoulder however still wanting him to not get caught so I looked into crouching over and how I can make the most from this cycle.
From doing some research I have decided that I want his eyes to slightly peer over the cover that he is behind so I will make sure that all his movements from the rest of his body are very subtle. I have also made sure that I have shown the distribution of weight throughout his legs and body so I subtlety made his torso go lower to the ground a split second before he goes up to look over the cover.
Monday, 9 March 2015
Animatic
We have finally finished our animatic which shows in detail what scenes our final cinematic will compose of. Our basic idea is that we are going have some ninjas sneak up on a team of soldiers which will have guns and then proceed to kill them off one by one with then one of the ninjas stealing something from the soldiers tent after they have killed them all.
We have also decided to split it up by Mitch making the ninja cycles and I will animate the soldiers so that we can use two different rigs as we cannot decide on one that both of us like and are confident with using, this will also help with distinguishing between the two different sides of people when putting together the final cinematic.
Monday, 2 February 2015
Basic eat cycle
Here I have created the basic eat cycle which could be used within the cinematic, I wanted to get a few different cycles blocked out so that I can come back and choose the ones I need for the final cinematic which I could later refine into proper cycles If I am to use this cycle I will put more life into the animation such as more chewing and feet movement to make it more lifelike.
Guard walk
Here you can see that the eyes start the head turn which gives the cycle another dimension to make him more life like that not that his head is just swinging back and forth.
Below shows my guards patrol walk which I think I will include in the final cinematic as it will fit nicely to our idea. I am pretty happy with the final outcome of my guards walk and feel I will be able to get a lot of use from this cycle.
Friday, 30 January 2015
Run Cycle
After finishing the walk cycle I have gone onto creating a run cycle with my rig using the same skills that I used to create the walk cycle. To make the run cycle I lifted the feet up on the first and last key frames when the rig was a full stretch to show the feet in the air and then when the feet would cross over I put the foot travelling back on the ground to show the basic running stance.
Once I have done this I then went onto the arms and added in greater detail with those, like the walk all they need was extra swing when going through the motions and when they are dropping back down from being at the top of the swing.
Following on from this I wanted to sort the torso out, I have done this by putting a small turn onto torso when at the peak of the step which helps it look more professional.
The final things that I need to do now to completed the run is to touch up all the areas which I have basically blocked in such as the legs and arms, I think I might even put a facial expression which might give some personality to the character. I am pretty happy with the outcome of this initial run cycle however I think the arms may need a bit more work to make them look more life like.
Once I have done this I then went onto the arms and added in greater detail with those, like the walk all they need was extra swing when going through the motions and when they are dropping back down from being at the top of the swing.
Following on from this I wanted to sort the torso out, I have done this by putting a small turn onto torso when at the peak of the step which helps it look more professional.
The final things that I need to do now to completed the run is to touch up all the areas which I have basically blocked in such as the legs and arms, I think I might even put a facial expression which might give some personality to the character. I am pretty happy with the outcome of this initial run cycle however I think the arms may need a bit more work to make them look more life like.
Thursday, 29 January 2015
Walk Cycle
For the first animation I have gone with the simple walk cycle to get into the flow of creating animations and also to familiarise myself with the rig that I have chosen to use. I have chosen to use the Max rig due to the fact that it has a simple GUI for the face and also minimal controls around the body and I have previously used it before on other projects.
So the first thing I did was to start with the leg by putting them in the extreme poses while key-framing them so that he would look like his feet would slide across the floor rather than walking.
Following this I wanted to get the arms to do the same so that I had the base movements down which would let me go through each limb making the cycle look more life like.
After getting the main forms I concentrated on the waist and torso to show when it would go up and down when each step is made to do this I gathered some research on walk cycles and how the body moves with the steps.
This image helped a lot as it shows how the body moves through the cycle which is exactly what I needed to make it more human and life like. As you can see below he is already looking more life like and real compared to the skiers above. I have also picked the foot up when they are crossing over each other in the middle which positively enhances the walk.
After this I have gone through the whole walk cycle adding a variety of features to the rig which makes him look like a normal person walking rather than having a robotic walk such as the toe bend when it hits the floor and extra swing on the forearms and hands which really adds a lot to the animation as a whole. Below shows my final walk cycle, I have made him have a slow walk to try and emphasise the separate movements however keeping it quick enough so that he is not shuffling along the floor. Overall I am happy with this cycle.
So the first thing I did was to start with the leg by putting them in the extreme poses while key-framing them so that he would look like his feet would slide across the floor rather than walking.
Following this I wanted to get the arms to do the same so that I had the base movements down which would let me go through each limb making the cycle look more life like.
After getting the main forms I concentrated on the waist and torso to show when it would go up and down when each step is made to do this I gathered some research on walk cycles and how the body moves with the steps.
This image helped a lot as it shows how the body moves through the cycle which is exactly what I needed to make it more human and life like. As you can see below he is already looking more life like and real compared to the skiers above. I have also picked the foot up when they are crossing over each other in the middle which positively enhances the walk.
After this I have gone through the whole walk cycle adding a variety of features to the rig which makes him look like a normal person walking rather than having a robotic walk such as the toe bend when it hits the floor and extra swing on the forearms and hands which really adds a lot to the animation as a whole. Below shows my final walk cycle, I have made him have a slow walk to try and emphasise the separate movements however keeping it quick enough so that he is not shuffling along the floor. Overall I am happy with this cycle.
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