The second piece of animation I did for my Ani399 physicality class was a short, 100-frame parkour piece. First step was to analyze my video reference and create thumbnails, timed out in flash.
Next was to build a stage and block in the animation in Maya.
I then took feedback in class and incorporated the suggestions into the poses, then began splining.
I took further critique from class, changed the set to be something a bit more dramatic, finessed the splines and rendered the scene.
Showing posts with label blocking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blocking. Show all posts
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Ninja Drop animation
I started taking a class in animating for physicality. The first piece I did was of a ninja dropping from the ceiling and then slinking away.
First step was to sketch out thumbnails based on my video reference.
I then took these and blocked in the key poses for the animation.
From there, I took the feedback from my class session and fixed some of the poses. I then I began splining the animation, first using linear and autoTangent and then finessing them a bit.
There was a number of issues, especially the "sticky" hand resulting in the IK/FK switching, which I hadn't done before. I fixed the issues I could and polished the splines, resulting in this rendered version of the animation, the final so far.
First step was to sketch out thumbnails based on my video reference.
I then took these and blocked in the key poses for the animation.
From there, I took the feedback from my class session and fixed some of the poses. I then I began splining the animation, first using linear and autoTangent and then finessing them a bit.
There was a number of issues, especially the "sticky" hand resulting in the IK/FK switching, which I hadn't done before. I fixed the issues I could and polished the splines, resulting in this rendered version of the animation, the final so far.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
PRJ350 - Week 12 Progress Journal
What a week.
After reviewing the animation blocking I had completed last week and looking at the schedule I had left, I decided it was time for triage - I had to get rid of the bad blocking and do it over. It really didn't work well enough for what I needed, and it would have taken more time to try to fix it then it would have to just do it right. Having gone through the process, I feel I made the right decision, but the clock is ticking and I'm not particularly happy with what I'm going to have left at the end of the process - something I'll get into once I've completed the project and can do a post-mortem.
First thing I did this week was revise the basic lighting pass I had and get the "god lights" into the scene, as well as get the final props I was going to need in. I had to get this done, as the scene wouldn't work without them, and having the real things in rather then the proxies meant I could act to them rather then to where I assumed they would be in the final, then spend time later fixing the issues - time I wasn't sure I would have.
I would have liked to have modeled a custom sword for the scene, but I was on borrowed time, so I re-used an asset I had built for another class - the dagger from the table in my Bandit's Crossing interior scene. I stretched the blade out, tossed it into zbrush to get a better texture (the one I had wasn't working well at all, as it was grouped with a number of other items on the original texture sheet), a technique that worked well, as it allowed me to practice the process of baking out matcaps to the diffuse channel and get a better, more accurate normal map, something we'd been working on in my Zbrush class.
I got the sword into the scene and started tweaking the light setup. Most of the images shown are rendered with a test diffuse material on the goblin, as it shows up correctly in the viewport window and allows me to animate easier then with the SSS shader active - the SSS shader shows up as pure red in the viewport, making it difficult to read eye direction.
I messed with the godlight settings until I got them into the ballpark, then turned on the environment lights to make sure I'd have a strong enough effect to work in the composition, but not be too overpowering so that you couldn't read action happening behind them.
I ended up using two of the volumetric lights to get the falloff I wanted - one with a wider diameter but a softer effect, and a narrower, stronger one in the center to get a more powerful beam.
Finally, I turned on the SSS shader and played with a number of the shadow settings until I got exactly the look I needed - it still isn't ideal - the shadows have far harder edges then I'd prefer, but it is producing the desired effect well.
I then modeled out an anvil and textured it rapidly, using photoshop and Zbrush, got it into place and began blocking. I put in a lot of time between Friday and Sunday getting these poses in - I still have some timing issues to resolve and a few storytelling moments that need clarification and revision, but I am feeling more optimistic then I was earlier. I've rendered out some of the stills, as I would do often to ensure I was getting the result and composition I needed in the blocking, and it was often hard to tell in the viewport quite how things would look when rendered - these are all with the reference diffuse shader on the goblin, however, so keep that in mind.
Below is a copy of the revised blocking playblast. After speaking about my concerns about finishing the project in time with a number of professors, we revised the story beats a bit. I'm happy with the changes, although I'm going to miss some of the beats that were cut.
I'm nearly done with this phase, and hope to have it fully blocked by Wednesday so I can spend the rest of the week working on getting the spline pass completed. I'm not as happy with the result as I would be, but I spent too long in the rigging phase - the effort spent there was worth it, but it left me without the time I needed to spend elsewhere, and I learned a huge amount about something I was previously not proficient at at all. I also learned a lot about getting subsurface scattering shaders and modeling a character for animation, and am pretty happy with what I'm leaving with with the project, I just wish I could have focused further on the actual animation process during it.
After reviewing the animation blocking I had completed last week and looking at the schedule I had left, I decided it was time for triage - I had to get rid of the bad blocking and do it over. It really didn't work well enough for what I needed, and it would have taken more time to try to fix it then it would have to just do it right. Having gone through the process, I feel I made the right decision, but the clock is ticking and I'm not particularly happy with what I'm going to have left at the end of the process - something I'll get into once I've completed the project and can do a post-mortem.
First thing I did this week was revise the basic lighting pass I had and get the "god lights" into the scene, as well as get the final props I was going to need in. I had to get this done, as the scene wouldn't work without them, and having the real things in rather then the proxies meant I could act to them rather then to where I assumed they would be in the final, then spend time later fixing the issues - time I wasn't sure I would have.
I would have liked to have modeled a custom sword for the scene, but I was on borrowed time, so I re-used an asset I had built for another class - the dagger from the table in my Bandit's Crossing interior scene. I stretched the blade out, tossed it into zbrush to get a better texture (the one I had wasn't working well at all, as it was grouped with a number of other items on the original texture sheet), a technique that worked well, as it allowed me to practice the process of baking out matcaps to the diffuse channel and get a better, more accurate normal map, something we'd been working on in my Zbrush class.
I got the sword into the scene and started tweaking the light setup. Most of the images shown are rendered with a test diffuse material on the goblin, as it shows up correctly in the viewport window and allows me to animate easier then with the SSS shader active - the SSS shader shows up as pure red in the viewport, making it difficult to read eye direction.
I messed with the godlight settings until I got them into the ballpark, then turned on the environment lights to make sure I'd have a strong enough effect to work in the composition, but not be too overpowering so that you couldn't read action happening behind them.
I ended up using two of the volumetric lights to get the falloff I wanted - one with a wider diameter but a softer effect, and a narrower, stronger one in the center to get a more powerful beam.
Finally, I turned on the SSS shader and played with a number of the shadow settings until I got exactly the look I needed - it still isn't ideal - the shadows have far harder edges then I'd prefer, but it is producing the desired effect well.
I then modeled out an anvil and textured it rapidly, using photoshop and Zbrush, got it into place and began blocking. I put in a lot of time between Friday and Sunday getting these poses in - I still have some timing issues to resolve and a few storytelling moments that need clarification and revision, but I am feeling more optimistic then I was earlier. I've rendered out some of the stills, as I would do often to ensure I was getting the result and composition I needed in the blocking, and it was often hard to tell in the viewport quite how things would look when rendered - these are all with the reference diffuse shader on the goblin, however, so keep that in mind.
Below is a copy of the revised blocking playblast. After speaking about my concerns about finishing the project in time with a number of professors, we revised the story beats a bit. I'm happy with the changes, although I'm going to miss some of the beats that were cut.
I'm nearly done with this phase, and hope to have it fully blocked by Wednesday so I can spend the rest of the week working on getting the spline pass completed. I'm not as happy with the result as I would be, but I spent too long in the rigging phase - the effort spent there was worth it, but it left me without the time I needed to spend elsewhere, and I learned a huge amount about something I was previously not proficient at at all. I also learned a lot about getting subsurface scattering shaders and modeling a character for animation, and am pretty happy with what I'm leaving with with the project, I just wish I could have focused further on the actual animation process during it.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
PRJ350 - Week 10 Progress Journal
Huge amount of progress this week, although much of it isn't readily visible - a lot of behind-the-scenes prep for the next big push - animation blocking.
I began by building out my basic environment, using a technique I learned last semester in CG300 to create a tree, then duplicating it and tweaking it to create a second. Essentially, I built a cylinder, then used a number of latices and nonlinear bend and twist deformers to create the central trunk, then duplicated that shape and scaled it and twisted it to create the branch shapes. I then cut the hole for the branch in the main trunk and combined the meshes, using target weld, and pushed the combined verts around until I had the shape I wanted.
I then exported the tree from Maya into Max and unwrapped it, as I prefer the pelt and relax unwrap tools available there to Maya's unwrap options for organic shapes. I had a good wood bark photo in my reference library that I converted into a tiling texture, then applied it to the re-imported tree shape in Maya, repeating the bark texture as many times as needed to get the scale to look right.
Once that was done, I exported the ground plane into Mudbox to sculpt it, creating a roadway sunk into the ground and a slight valley where the main action was going to play out in the scene, allowing the sword and goblin to break the horizon and be silhouetted against the sky. I then re-imported this into Maya and got it placed where it needed to be.
I then brought in a tree from a previous project to save time and add variety to my scene, one that had been sculpted in Mudbox - it is a bit higher poly then I'd like, but it will look great rendered, and I can always render the background plate separately from the foreground elements, since the lighting won't move - this will likely be a necessity once I get the high-poly grass laid in. I also brought in a copy of the goblin's mesh, to make sure the scale was going to work well. I blocked in the camera and deleted any of the polys from the foreground tree that weren't going to be part of the final render, to cut down on excess geometry,
Finally, I got the textures set up for the ground plane and new trees, as well as the sky background. They're still not perfect, but they're looking okay so far. As I mentioned previously, I'll be painting in high-poly grasses in the foreground and background to help add a better finished look to the scene and create a more realistic environment, but for the blocking phase this is unnecessary, as it creates a huge overhead for rendering and file size, and makes it very difficult to work on the school's sub-par 32 bit systems as they tend to choke on high-poly scenes. I'll likely end up adding the grass fairly soon and making sure it is on a separate layer, so I can turn it off when I don't want it in the scene. It will also make the rendering process easier, having them out of the way.
I also brought in the fully rigged character model at this time, so I could begin test renders. This was a tricky process, as I often lost a lot of the shader information or rigging if it wasn't done correctly. I ended up spending an hour or two cleaning up old garbage left behind in both scenes, lots of hidden geometry and rigging artifacts that aren't used and won't ever be used, to facilitate the process. To get the merge to work best I ended up importing the environment into the rigged character file, rather then the other way around, then going through and carefully removing and renaming things that may present problems in the future.
Once I had the two files properly merged, I had to spend some time fixing some rigging issues and adding the last few controllers I needed for the rig that had gotten missed previously - in particular, I had somehow neglected to add nurbs shapes for controllers for the loincloth and ear joints. Once I had them in place and the model was ready to animate, I wanted to get a rudimentary lighting pass done, as I knew it was another critical, tricky step that I would likely need assistance and feedback on, so better to get it started now.
The first lighting pass was problematic - some of the lights didn't want to work properly, I was inheriting lights from the previous rigging file that weren't visible in my scene view but overpowered everything in my render, and the shader for the goblin had to be rebuilt.
I had a lot of notes left over from last time I built the shader, so it was simple enough to re-link the files and tweak some of the settings to get it in - I need to revisit it soon, however, as the light is passing through the character far too strongly and ruins the effect, causing the little dude to glow a bit.
Once that was corrected, I moved him to the point where he'll first stop and see the sword and anvil (the sword and anvil are currently just placeholder geometry - I need to model them both this week, and they don't really have much on them in terms of lighting).
I also put the character into his first real test pose - I will need to revisit a lot of the blend shapes, I've got a handful of them built now and I imported a dozen or so meshes of the goblin to use for other blend shape targets once I get the basic blocking in, as it will be easier to build target sculpts then, since he is a one-off rig.
And that's where we're at for the moment. I'm hoping to get some more of the base poses in tonight, but I wanted to get this blog post up before midnight, and I've got to go to a quick birthday dinner for a friend. All in all, I'm feeling a lot more confident about the scene and am excited about the next few weeks, although there is a huuuuuge amount of animation to get done for this project, and not a lot of weeks left to do it.
I began by building out my basic environment, using a technique I learned last semester in CG300 to create a tree, then duplicating it and tweaking it to create a second. Essentially, I built a cylinder, then used a number of latices and nonlinear bend and twist deformers to create the central trunk, then duplicated that shape and scaled it and twisted it to create the branch shapes. I then cut the hole for the branch in the main trunk and combined the meshes, using target weld, and pushed the combined verts around until I had the shape I wanted.
I then exported the tree from Maya into Max and unwrapped it, as I prefer the pelt and relax unwrap tools available there to Maya's unwrap options for organic shapes. I had a good wood bark photo in my reference library that I converted into a tiling texture, then applied it to the re-imported tree shape in Maya, repeating the bark texture as many times as needed to get the scale to look right.
Once that was done, I exported the ground plane into Mudbox to sculpt it, creating a roadway sunk into the ground and a slight valley where the main action was going to play out in the scene, allowing the sword and goblin to break the horizon and be silhouetted against the sky. I then re-imported this into Maya and got it placed where it needed to be.
I then brought in a tree from a previous project to save time and add variety to my scene, one that had been sculpted in Mudbox - it is a bit higher poly then I'd like, but it will look great rendered, and I can always render the background plate separately from the foreground elements, since the lighting won't move - this will likely be a necessity once I get the high-poly grass laid in. I also brought in a copy of the goblin's mesh, to make sure the scale was going to work well. I blocked in the camera and deleted any of the polys from the foreground tree that weren't going to be part of the final render, to cut down on excess geometry,
Finally, I got the textures set up for the ground plane and new trees, as well as the sky background. They're still not perfect, but they're looking okay so far. As I mentioned previously, I'll be painting in high-poly grasses in the foreground and background to help add a better finished look to the scene and create a more realistic environment, but for the blocking phase this is unnecessary, as it creates a huge overhead for rendering and file size, and makes it very difficult to work on the school's sub-par 32 bit systems as they tend to choke on high-poly scenes. I'll likely end up adding the grass fairly soon and making sure it is on a separate layer, so I can turn it off when I don't want it in the scene. It will also make the rendering process easier, having them out of the way.
I also brought in the fully rigged character model at this time, so I could begin test renders. This was a tricky process, as I often lost a lot of the shader information or rigging if it wasn't done correctly. I ended up spending an hour or two cleaning up old garbage left behind in both scenes, lots of hidden geometry and rigging artifacts that aren't used and won't ever be used, to facilitate the process. To get the merge to work best I ended up importing the environment into the rigged character file, rather then the other way around, then going through and carefully removing and renaming things that may present problems in the future.
Once I had the two files properly merged, I had to spend some time fixing some rigging issues and adding the last few controllers I needed for the rig that had gotten missed previously - in particular, I had somehow neglected to add nurbs shapes for controllers for the loincloth and ear joints. Once I had them in place and the model was ready to animate, I wanted to get a rudimentary lighting pass done, as I knew it was another critical, tricky step that I would likely need assistance and feedback on, so better to get it started now.
The first lighting pass was problematic - some of the lights didn't want to work properly, I was inheriting lights from the previous rigging file that weren't visible in my scene view but overpowered everything in my render, and the shader for the goblin had to be rebuilt.
I had a lot of notes left over from last time I built the shader, so it was simple enough to re-link the files and tweak some of the settings to get it in - I need to revisit it soon, however, as the light is passing through the character far too strongly and ruins the effect, causing the little dude to glow a bit.
Once that was corrected, I moved him to the point where he'll first stop and see the sword and anvil (the sword and anvil are currently just placeholder geometry - I need to model them both this week, and they don't really have much on them in terms of lighting).
I also put the character into his first real test pose - I will need to revisit a lot of the blend shapes, I've got a handful of them built now and I imported a dozen or so meshes of the goblin to use for other blend shape targets once I get the basic blocking in, as it will be easier to build target sculpts then, since he is a one-off rig.
And that's where we're at for the moment. I'm hoping to get some more of the base poses in tonight, but I wanted to get this blog post up before midnight, and I've got to go to a quick birthday dinner for a friend. All in all, I'm feeling a lot more confident about the scene and am excited about the next few weeks, although there is a huuuuuge amount of animation to get done for this project, and not a lot of weeks left to do it.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Ani300 Animations
Last semester I was lucky enough to take a great animation course from Suzanne Kaufman. In the class, I did a number of animations, including the following, posted in chronological order.
Blocking pass of Walk with Character:
Polish pass of Walk with Character:
Blocking Pass of "Mind the Gap":
Splines Pass of "Mind the Gap":
Final Polish Pass of "Mind the Gap":
Block Pass for "Valley Girl and Bomb":
Final Pass for "Valley Girl and Bomb":
Blocking pass of Walk with Character:
Polish pass of Walk with Character:
Blocking Pass of "Mind the Gap":
Splines Pass of "Mind the Gap":
Final Polish Pass of "Mind the Gap":
Block Pass for "Valley Girl and Bomb":
Final Pass for "Valley Girl and Bomb":
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