these terms come from robotics where engineers have to figure out how to move and rotate joints to get the effector to the position they need.
fK when any bone chain is rigged with fk it means that the bones are chained from parents to children. If you rotate bone 2, all of its children will rotate as well, which means that the bone 1 will not because it’s the parent of bone 2 and not it’s child. It’s useful since it created arc movements by default when joints travel along curved trajectories
Ik works in the opposite way, you loose the ability to animate every bone of the chain separately. With ik joints move in line trajectories unless you create the arc manually.
Methods for Fixing Knee/Elbow Popping
Rig a Solution
add a rig to eradicate the knee elbow popping. around the area via creating a cluster (a group of vertices, in this case grouping the leg and the knee together.
After, change the skin around the cluster through the geometry of the cluster to decrease the overall movement using the paint attributes tool.
However the cluster does not move around with the leg, the knee. That can be fixed by parent the cluster under the knee joint (relative attribute turned on, to move relative to the joint).
This method is useful to fix the problem in one dimension one direction, it would be difficult to fix it for a group of directions.
IK/FK Switch Rigging
How to rig the IK and FK switch to better understand the technology behind them. They joints I maya follow an hierarchy so they are linked and parented to each other and are connected and skinned to geometry. Altogether they function as an arm. The IK and FK are usually in the shoulder, elbow and wrist.
the way FK rig works is that each joint follows the parent joint’s behavior. If you rotate the shoulder, the elbow, wrist will follow.
Ik works inversely up the skeleton hierarchy.
switch between the two joints when parented with the initial rig. Set driven key to switch between two sets of controlling points. Also set the visibility for when using one or another control.
Motion Path Animation
Motion paths give us the ability to move an element along a predefined path; for example by creating a spline curve could help animate a path for an object in 3D space. the curve pattern can be modified with vertices and when the object is animated using keys it displays the frame at which the object will be in space. with the motion path curve you are also able to change the orientation of the object, in this case the spaceship, to make it look less mechanical while it moves on the curve.
In part 1 I blocked the Animation, created the key poses on 8’s and add some breakdowns on 4’s
1) Adding breakdown poses/inbetweens
I added some breakdowns on 4’s
2) Stability/locking
The first aspect to work on was the feet position throughout the animation: they were not standing on the ground and I had not firstly used the heel roll on the controls to make them bend when the character jumped, so for each keyframe I adjusted their rotation, so that they would be evenly standing on the floor, and make sure the translate y was 0 (when not jumping)
editing the rotation of the feet channels to 0
I also noticed that the hands controls were positioned incorrectly since the hands were outside the actual controls: they should be always inside the hands controls.
Another element that needed some work was the root control since both translation y and x and its rotation too were not keyed correctly and that was affecting the others controls too and correcting it helped me with the elbow popping too.
Another element which contributed to the elbow popping was the torso control, its rotation in particular, which, as it is shown in the picture, was tilted to one side initially.
Even the elbow and knee controls were not positioned correctly at first since they were too close to the character geometry.
After these changes I reviewed each key and breakdowns
3) Converting to Splines
After I cleaned the animation with stepped keys I converted the keyframes into splines selecting the keys with the character set and converting them in the graph editor.
4) Polishing: Graph Editor Clean Up 1
I after started cleaning the animation from the main controls such as the centre gravity, the pelvis and the spine and then concentrating on the elbow pole control or knees pole control and hands and feet. While editing the graph I was checking both the graph editor and the viewport to see with changes was I making with the graph considering the fact that only translate y follows the “visual” movement of the viewport and the rotation in the graph follows a more abstract path; however, I only made the necessary changes since I did not want to change the nature of the Animation. Switching on and off the layers of the animation helped me in the process to visualise better the movement. While editing the graph I always played the whole animation to check its fluidity. I used the flat tangents for peaks of curves or for similar values keys so that they did not interpolate. I have also adjusted some curves using weighted tangents, although I have not used too much since the key movement of the animation was concentrated on very few keyframes close together, so the curves could not be too wide.
So, for each control I have checked all the movement curves both translate and rotation and adjusted, not drastically, the graph editor following the animation in the viewport.
difficult to work with since the elbow was popping too much especially when the character position itself to to the volleyball bump.
deleted translate y for avoiding squash and stretch
I then focus the attention on the fingers animation since that when both hands came together for the volleyball bump the fingers overlapped each other so I have adjusted the keyframes of the different fingers controls in the graph editor so that they won’t.
This is the video of the final fingers animation polished
I then finished off by cleaning the splines of the knees poles and feet after I have converted them in splines.
This is the output of the polished splines
5) Elbow & Knee Popping
AS it is shown in the picture in the first blocked poses stage the knees controls were not keyed in the correct position, so for each keyframe I have adjusted the distance between the poles and the knees and edited their orientation as well for when the knees bend for the volleyball bump.
I first tried to diagnose the problem which could have possibly caused by both the hands controls position and the top part of the spine rotation. I also edited their position since at first they were quite close to the elbows.
6) Polish the movements after the splines had been cleaned to refine the poses; each pose throughout the animation should look good I should check for balance and anything out of place, looking at details first in the viewport and after in the graph editor:
1- balance: check the root control to increase the balance to improve the pose which can also lead to improve the rhythm of the overall animation and see the graph editor first the translate and after the rotation.
Moreover from the graph editor it was clear that the splines in some parts were too flat which is unnatural because the human body cannot stay that still or had a linear rate (happens only with falling with gravity, which is not the case), so I had to make sure
After I have cleaned it up: I have worked on the balance shift throughout the animation.
2 – spine/pelvis: work on the pelvis controls to help the spine create an arc while doing the action and also edited the rotation to keep the high balance of a pose. in doing so I have also edited the feet translate x in space to find the right balance.
3 – arms: during the volleyball bump they should not stretch out too much since it looks unnatural, they should bend slightly and also the wrists should not be as much rotated as they were. I should also check the shoulders controls since their position was quite unnatural and could have also contributed to the problem I had with the elbows.
position of the hands changed as a consequence of the torso and root movement have been changedadjusting the elbow pole controls as well
Another thing the ball squash and stretch: one frame before the ball hits the ball should have been more stretched.
One last thing to do for the elbow pole popping was to check the torso and spine controls: the rotate of the spine was moving forward as the translate of the torso is moving in the opposite direction.
these are the corrections I have applied and the elbow popping was considerably improved
final polish
One last aspect I had to work on was the impact with the ball key: it was like the spine was compensating for the root wrong movement so I made sure that the torso and the spine controls were positioned correctly and the root rotated and translated correctly.
7) Key Retiming: Checking Rhythm
the timing was not too bad while playing the playblast however I have decided to do a global retiming in the Graph editor which actually helped the fluidity and rhythm of the overall animation. I also checked the splines in the graph editor after the retiming for adjustments.
8) Playblast & add After Effects Pixel Motion Blur
I after playblasted the animation and added a pixel motion blur in after effects
In most stories the design, the movement, the staging and performance of a character will drive the narrative: character and performance they work together and can’t be separated and in most cases they will create the narrative.
Animation, in this sense, adds a different characters dimensions than other formats since it reinterpret human form and experiences by anthropomorphism of it’s characters that could also be inanimate objects, offering a broader definition of a character
This is an example of how performance can be created with a minimum amount of elements and that it could be action based.
The characters come across as very little dialogue, since is the action to create the narrative and the key scenes are built up through the character’s performance.
This animated short film deals with the principle of appeal in a sense that the characters are engaging, they make you care for them. They show their appeal through the design and how they perform, act, speak. In this animated short film what drives the narrative are also facial expressions and reactions, the staging the composition of the scene and the relations and interaction between the characters.
This is a very involving story, there is no dialogue and a backstory too: this is an example of taking a traditional start on narrative and putting it in a short film rather than a longer piece.
Also this short film obeys the rules of narrative but in a short amount of time: the staging, the interactions between characters, the key events are all achieved by a character performance driven story. There is even a moral to the story: not to mock other people or be mean to them because it has consequences. Another key elements to analyse is the eyes of the characters which are the feature which performs the most and communicates too.
This short movie has some really interesting elements concerning the way the narrative is driven: the staging regarding the two different worlds (the human and the alien one), the performance of the characters which is action driven and concentrated on the face expressions. Here there is also an example of how animation applies anthropomorphism to it’s characters: the audience can easily identify with the situation, since we, as humans are assessed continually in our life, we can fail or succeed, whichever is the case we can learn from it and do better next time.
Character development
From the examples above we can notice that characters can become the story itself driving the narrative and leading to the key points: all well-drawn characters have a an inner motor, a dominant unconscious goal that they are striving for, that drives all his or her choices. We as the audience are interested in witnessing a change, a growth in the character by the end of the story. Every main character has a weakness at the beginning of a story identifying him or her and creating the narrative too, of which they are not completely aware, it becomes almost a need. We can identify two type of weaknesses that main characters (heroes) can have:
Psychological: which is a weakness that only affects a hero and no one else.
Moral: a weakness that it morally hurts the characters surrounding the hero.
Any psychological weakness can be developed to become a moral need as well.
These two groups are some of the weaknesses that a hero can experience
The weaknesses in group two are more often represented in stories: they are turned outwards, they require other characters to exists they can harm other characters but can be reflected negatively to hurt the hero as well, they can help create a moral and psychological need fo the character. On the other hand the weaknesses from group 1 are turned inwards harming the hero himself. For instance, goofball comedies rarely get the character weaknesses development right, since they are not pressured to have profound character development and they risk getting too heavy and to bring the mood of the story down, therefore they tend to be psychological weaknesses: when developing a weakness for a character it should be taken in consideration if the weakness is going to be intentional or if it will inherently cause immoral actions to the surrounding characters: think about the actions the character will take driven by the weakness what decisions do they make because of this weakness, do these decisions or actions hurt other characters if not think of ways to flush out the weakness outwards the character to show the immoral consequences of having such a weakness; in this regards also the opponents of the main character and how they attack the weakness of the main character. This conflict with the opponent are the key for the hero to overcome his or her weakness and what actions does the character take to redeem his or hers previous choices. Usually the main character does not know what does he or she needs to change about him or her right from the beginning but it should be a self-discovery, moreover it should not feel like a lecture to the audience otherwise it could become childish: the weakness or the learned lesson should not be stated out.
Story development
The character development and the story development usually go hand in hand: the story evolves also thanks to a good narrative structure, a task to achieve and to the ability that the screenwriter has, for example, to create an emotional connection through the stories he or she has created, which becomes the clue to a great story since it can cross barriers of time. For example, storytelling without dialogue, such as the short films listed above, is the purest form of cinematic storytelling, since it has the most inclusive approach that a narrative can take: the key to a good story is hiding the facts to make the audience look for them: we are compelled to deduce and deduct because we do it in our daily life, is the absence of information that draws us into the story and putting things together as the audience proceeds into the narrative is very important. Another important element in stories is invoking wonder and capture real experiences, not artificial one, and express values through them.
Writing a story
Helping to develop the sense of wonder is writing about something unknown and trust imagination through the process: by feeling it and experience it in first person helps evoking and sharing it to the audience too. However, fiction has to make sense, since is less stranger than life: it has to follow a structure and the essential character should strive to accomplish something meaningful. Hence, plot stories should have a central character who wants something intensely and goes after it despite opposition and, as a result of a struggle, comes to a win, or to a lose, and this definition naturally drives you to the consideration of the theme and the story point of view.
The hidden story dynamic
From the previous weeks we have identified that being every well developed story there is a defined structure sustaining it: having a story formula can help create a story that engages the audience by taking them on a compelling journey from a starting point to an end point in a way that they end satisfied by it too, and having a goal, identifying the result first and then design everything to achieve that out come can help develop clearer ideas.
A conventional story structure is, as we have seen, the 3 acts structure which is described in the following way:
Beginning (setup), also defined as Act 1 comprehends the first quarter of the story and is where the audience is introduced to the main characters in their normal life; something happens to them which is forcing them to respond and setting them on a new path. At the end of this section (plot point 1) something happens that spins the story in a whole new direction giving the character a goal which they will pursue throughout the second act.
Middle (conflict), also defined as Act 2 comprehends the second and third quarter of the story, were the character purses that goal the obstacles in between get in their way and they get challenging and harder and harder to overcome demanding more from the main character; after at plot point 2 something happens at the end of this act that shows the character what he or she must do to resolve the story.
End (resolution), also defined as Act 3 comprehends the last quarter of the story, is where the final story climax is built and where the battle ensues and they could end up winners or defeated. The consequences of the events of the story are shown too.
However, the human mind is designed to recognise patterns such as this formula, although this structure remains important in order to deconstruct already existing stories.
Alternatively, there is a mechanism underlying the structure, a hidden story dynamic applicable to everything and scalable: the setup and payoff mechanism, where the setup establishes the context or the situation and the payoff spins it. Every element in a story is either one of those of both of them. Actually even the elements of the 3 acts formula can be identified as setups or payoffs; It can help spotting cliches and predictable choices when the payoffs are too obvious, it helps strengthen the details of the story by creating setups choices that connect with the rest of the story; when either the setups or the payoffs are not played off well ones can actually discover the holes in the story. This mechanism more specifically helps realising that everything is interconnected into a narrative, that nothing happens without having consequences but significant ones.
The character and story development in Animation are two very closely associated aspects. For instance, a story artist and director takes care of the composition of the scene the staging of the elements and the camera position; the animator director, however develops the best performance for the characters making look spontaneous by collecting references. They both connect their abilities to converge into the ultimate goal that is how to create an engaging, satisfying narrative which compiles the audience.
Through the camera settings I have imported the footage into 3D Equalizer project file. I changed the gamma settings to 2 and the soft clip settings to 1: there is more depth to the colour and the exr footage images are easier to control. I have used just 200 frames and started on frame 1. To play the footage in the software I exported the buffer compression file.
I then created two different folders for the point groups: one for the tracking points of the scene background and the second for the tracked point on the person head to then place and line up an object on it, in this case it will be an iron man helmet. The reason why there are two groups is for when I will calculate the scene the person moves differently from the background.
The lens settings for the camera the footage was shot with:
This are the camera data to input into 3DEthe pixel aspect should be on 1
Once the camera data was fixed I started to track the camera points also with the help of the image controls
By changing the brightness and contrast options helped to find the right corners and sharp edges to place the tracking points.
This footage, compared to the one of last week, is flat. Even though is very still, I still needed to track the camera because there were some depths. The pattern of the point should never track a moving things otherwise it will more along and it won’t be accurate.
I order for the lens to bend properly, this digram on top is very useful for planning the position of the tracking points making the tracking more efficient by getting all the parts of the screen to divide it in quarters and areas especially for the “external parts. Getting points in all these areas is going to help forming the “fake lens” made in 3DE. If you don’t have points that goes all over you may get really fall out corners which is wrong. Tracked Points should be places to places with clear edges and no movement nor changing in either position or characteristics such as a corners. While tracking the points I have always checked the search area value that should have always been or “green” and if it turned to “red” while tracking I adjusted the patterns of the points. Moreover, while tracking the points, especially when tracking backwards (from the end of the footage), I made sure I ended the point.
To have points continuously going even though i did not know where they were I followed these steps:
When points were placed and, throughout the footage, were “covered” by a moving element at a certain point I could end the points before the moving element came in the way and start them again when the moving element passed through using page up and down to place them in the same point. to place the point in the same place I also used the grid to help snap them in the same positionthrough the timeline editor it is possible to track throughout the time a moving elements passes in front of a point using “spline curve segments” option
If the shots are still there is no need to put points in the centre as there is no distortion of lens
When the tracking is done I calculated the points and the camera wouldn’t show anything since the camera constraints settings are wrong, they should be set as fixed camera position constrain giving all the points zero depth.
After the fixed camera
After I did a refinement stage with the deviation browser trying to delete big spiked with high values
The next operation is to open the Parameter Adjustment menu. First working with the focal lens for the setting I have set before in the lens settings and calculated the results after;
second step is lens distortion and after calculate
and after the quartic distortion and calculate after. If the number on top turns to zero it means that probably this step should be avoided as it means that nothing is moving, which is wrong.
If in the viewport one switch between f2 and f5 one can see the distortion created.
Next part is concerning the object tracking in the scene. I captured the guy face in the video to place an iron man helmet. The process of tracking the points is similar to the second part, but the points here are tracking the person face while it turns.
I first imported the 3d object model of the ironman helmet in the object points group.
I tracked constant patterns and defined areas of the face such as the hairline and avoid elements such as ears, hair and the glasses: the difficult aspect of this tracking is that the person at some point turns his head so while tracking I paid attention that the position of the points was constant throughout the footage since the 3d object I would have after placed on top should move along with the face.
I a new 3dE window set with 3D orientation control on one side and another 3dE window for the line up I have aligned the helmet with the face in particular with the tracked points with the survey data settings turned off.
Just like last week I have exported the scene in maya and did the run warp exporting the undistorted footage.
I have imported the helmet model again into Maya to create an animation with the helmet itself.
A potential area to research into could be the one of the Mise-en-scène. I particularly found it very fascinating in all its aspects and possible research application, from the specific use that one director could make of the different elements and what could help them convey. That is why I have decided I could focus on Alfred Hitchcock pieces, by analysing the suspense techniques he employed in his works, which could be seen as an application of the different elements of the Mise-en-scène collaborating together to lead to the desired effect the director wants the audience to see. My choice was partially influenced also by the high amount of academic and scholarly recognised sources on the subject so that I can consult them to support my overall proposition and topic. So, I will analyse different films where he employed his most acclaimed suspense technique.
Actually, after I decided to concentrate on the audience and the characters suspense rather than on the mise-en-scène components, since I thought that relying only on the mise-en-scène elements would have ended up to be too much descriptive and would not have helped me in the analysis process.
While searching and reading the sources for the topic of suspense in Hitchcock films and in general I tried to narrow down the topic; during this process, I found out how the suspense in Hitchcock’s films is not just one but multiple: therefore, the question I will try to analyse and answer in this critical report and its purpose will be “Is the suspense felt by the audience the same felt by the character in Hitchcock’s films?”
The topic of suspense motivated me to research and discover about its inner mechanism and the various techniques to obtain it.
How might the research impact present or future theoretical and practical study. Are there potentials to apply new learning?
I found the information I have collected while reading about the different kinds of suspense and the techniques used by Hitchcock to evoke them in his audience very interesting; that is why they have made me to ask myself how one day I could try to apply such techniques and mechanism in my own work. Animation films are often considered to aim at a young audience but since it is not always true I think it can be very interesting to apply “suspense evocation techniques” also in these productions. Anyway, I have clear in my mind some examples of animation addressed to children where suspense is a fundamental element: one of these examples is “Sleeping beauty” when Malefica makes Aurora to sting herself with a spinning wheel. I remember well the sensation of suspense these scenes had on me when I was a child, and I must say that I still consider it a quite thrilling situation.
Audience: who and what is the report for?
I will address my critical report to my professor and my fellow classmates. With it I intended to suggest a reflection about the techniques that are behind the feelings we have while watching a film are not as abstract as we may think but are the result of thorough studies on the human mind, so that such feelings are shared by different audiences in different times.
Take 2 films you enjoy and break down the character development and story development throughout the film:
•Analyse how the main characters evolve (flat round character)
•Analyse how the characters drive the story
•If there are similarities between your films point this out and why you think they are following a similar structure if so.
Film 1:
Hercules
Hercules is the classic hero story who has to overcome many obstacles to find his true self. At first he mistakes it by the goal of becoming a true hero by achieving outstanding quests which will lead him to reunite him with his family where he can finally find his place by not feeling an outcast anymore. However, he achieves something even better which is that true love is willing to sacrifice anything. Hercules is willing to sacrifice his life to save the life of his true love. Just as the Fates are about to cut his life thread, he reaches Meg, proves he is a true hero because of the self-sacrifice, and turns finally into a God. So, we can state that he is a round character a developed, life like character who has a deep relatability who witness a growth and a positive change by the end of the story (dynamic character).
I will now analyse the character and the way he evolves by the end of the story and how his journey is the key to drive the narrative.
Hercules is a young boy who has a family that loves him, however the more he grows the more he realises that there is something about him that makes him different from the other people surrounding him since appears to have an abnormal strength that he can’t control completely making him committing actions that transform his as a “freak” through the village people’s eyes.
His “call to adventure” is set when his parents, after several attempts by Hercules to adapt but failing, confess him that he was actually adopted by them and giving him clues of who he was since that when they found him he had a medallion with him with an incision indicating when he could get to get some answers: the temple of Zeus. He is now hopeful and starts his journey to find his true self. He then reaches the temple and Zeus finds a way to communicate with him by a statue present in the temple and reveals him that he is his father and that he was kidnapped from him and his mother after he was born. Hercules now as goal: reuniting with his parents on the Olympus where he thinks he belongs to, but in order to do so he has to become and prove himself as true hero and to do so he goes to Philoctetes a saytr renewed to train heroes.
Hercules meets his mentor Philoctetes who at first is reluctant to help him since he has so many defeats that he does not believe he can train a true hero anymore, however he sees something in Hercules, who tries to convince him, and takes on the task.
They then train and Hercules becomes aware of his strength and he has now gained (or think he did) the skills to overcome the challenges in the special world (Thebes).
But is not until Hercules battles the river guardian that he enters into the field of adventures and moves to Thebes a troubled city in need of a true hero. He is the middle of the quest and tests to achieve the qualities of a true heroes defeating enemies (the first one being the Hydra) and finding allies in the process. All these tests are actually set by his uncle Hades who was the one that wanted him to become immortal in the first place and who separated him from his parents: he sees Hercules as an obstacle to his quest for power and win the Olympus. Hercules by this time as proven partially to be a true hero since he has just collected a series of victories and gained fame: he feels that there is something missing.
Hades takes advantage of the fact that Megara, a girl who he first “saves” from the river guardian and Hercules has fallen in love with, has become his weakness and takes Hercules strength in exchange of meagre safety so that Hades could take over the Olympus without him interfering.
Hercules eventually finds out that Megara was working for Hades, even though she has changed now because of him, he powerless battles with the cyclops and during it Megara gets fatally injured and Hercules gains back his powers since the circumstances of Hades pact gets broken and tries to save the Olympus from Hades threat, which he manages to rescue, but there is one last quest: to save Megara’s soul from the underworld.
Hercules exchanges with Hades his soul for Megara’s: he reaches her in the river of dead souls, which almost kills him, proving he is a true hero because of the self-sacrifice, and turns finally into a God defeating Hades.
Hercules is immortal now and a true hero and can finally rejoin his parents but his love for Megara makes him realise that his place is with her on Earth: his image is in the stars and Philoctetes is proud of him.
In conclusion, Hercules, as we can see, is The story, is the key for the development of the narrative which goes along with his inner growth and journey to his positive change.
Film 2:
Ratatouille
Remy Is an even more anthropological character compared to his fellow rats (he walks on two paws and adores humans for their ability to manipulate food in an exquisite way, Auguste Gusteau is his idol) in the colony were he has always lived distinguishing himself fro his highly developed senses which are probably a consequence of his innate love for cuisine. His overall dream is to become a chef and throughout his journey as a hero he learns to put his passion for cooking at the service of the people he loves and not only to nourish his passion but also to give joy to others, he also becomes a chef at the La Ratatouille bistro in Paris with his friends. Just like Hercules he is a dynamic character witnessing an inner grows and positive change towards the end of his story and we can identify ourself in him experiencing what he is going through in the narrative making him a round character too.
Remy drives the narrative and we can witness that by following his journey to accomplish his dream:
At first he lives in the country, the ordinary world, in a colony of rats, he is actually the son of the chief, Django, who does not understand his and they are always in conflict with each other. He stands out from the rest of the rat because he is not satisfied with his life and he is always in search of culinary influences, he also usually visits secretly an old woman’s house to gain some knowledge on food and where he found out about August Gusteau a stellar chef in Paris who makes him realise that cooking is his true passion (the call for the Adventure).
Once Remy and his brother Émile are in the old woman kitchen, after Remy shares with him his secrets. They are actually discovered by the old woman who tries to kill them and by doing so the colony main home is revealed since they were living on the roof of the house.
During the escape of the colony, the first cross of the threshold, Remy stays behind loosing them. He ends up alone with no place to go and his Mentor (Auguste Gusteau spirit) reveals himself to him guiding Remy in his choices. That is when Remy finds out that has always lived near Paris and when he looks for his idol restaurant. the second cross of the threshold happens when he falls into the kitchen window of Gusteau’s restaurant: in order to survive he now has to pass several tests such manage to survive in the kitchen without being discovered, and when he is about to finally escaping he tries to “save” a soup prepared by Linguini (an inexpert newcomer in the kitchen) by adding some ingredients. This helps Linguini reputation in the kitchen since everyone thinks that he made the soup, he also saves Remy from being killed when he is found in the kitchen in exchange Remy will help him to cook while he works in the restaurant as a cook in secret.
Chef Skinner, he head chef substituting Gusteau after his death and the enemy, always tries to obstacle Linguini ascent to fame since he realises that there is something suspicious in Linguini and he also thinks that he did not kill the rat instead he kept him.
Linguini becomes an ally to Remy and they help each other: Linguini helps Remy archiving his dream to become a chef and Remy helps him to cook and maintaining the job in the restaurant.
However Linguini leaves Remy behind when he becomes famous thanks to Remy help and the fact that he finds out to be Gusteau’s son so Remy, who has finally reunited with his family, in anger gives access to his friend to the restaurant food reserve; Linguini finds out and they separate.
Remy is not there to help Linguini anymore and he struggles to cook for a food critic, who was the reason for Gusteau’s death since he gave a bad review to the restaurant, and he goes back to make the restaurant definitely close and if they can’t work together it probably will: the Abyss has been reached.
Remy and Linguini manage to cooperate together and Remy cooks a mesmerising recopy for the critic who seems like he is reborn and gives a positive review to the restaurant.
However the restaurant has to close since Skinner, who was fired from his position as head chef, proves that the restaurant has a rat infestation.
The return, the final moment of restoration of the story is where the heroes’ (both Remy and Linguini) lives are changed when Remy and Linguini learn from their adventure and open up a restaurant of their own both achieving their dreams.
Also here we witness how Remy journey is essential to the story development driving the narrative while completing his inner growth.
Comparisons between the two movies:
Both films are seen, mainly through the protagonist point of view, driving the development of the story since it matches with their journey.
Another similarity relies in the main character weaknesses types that are an essential clue to getting to the key point of the story: they have the “greed” which lead them to chance their starting situation and get to a point where they will be satisfied with their life. these moral weaknesses require other character to exist. These weaknesses harm the other characters and they reflect negatively to hurt the hero as well: for example Hercules is not recognised by his father as a true hero after he gains fame which makes him lost and Remy’s pride makes him betray Linguini who trusted him by making his fellow rats access to the canteen and he feels guilty afterwards. It creates a Moral and Psychological need for the main character: Psychological and Moral weaknesses help developing a good character.
Moreover the structure of both stories is quite similar since it can be deconstructed by using any story formula such as the Hero’s Journey, where we can also identify the characters archetypes belonging to this structure.
They are both animated films however they blogs to different Animation eras, meaning that Hercules is a 2D animation piece characterised by hand drawn frames (however the hydra is rendered in CGI), and Ratatuille broke new ground with their elaborate CG renderings, however Pixar team decided to give Ratatouille an old-school finish: for the end titles they enlisted hand-drawn animation.
Every student should be aiming to a deep learning, characterised by understanding the ideas that has been assimilated, consider the implications and application of the sources searched and apply a critical review to them, have a highly sense of curiosity which could be leading to a greater personal interest in the topic. In other words critical thinking is an essential ingredient for deep learning.
Critical thinking can be also considered a creative process since it concerns how to present, also using different formats, an effective argument, and even if the argument is presented in different ways it should always lead to a logical conclusion. It should also invoke presenting the reasoning and evidence in a clear, well structured manner. In fact the word “‘criticism” itself means to judge, a critic is someone who has investigated the evidence and tested them also considering alternative arguments and explanations and reaches an informed opinion in the light of these evidences and reaches a conclusion out of those.
Some key words regarding the critical thinking process are: persistency, while reviewing the evidences, skepticism, asking why, who, what, where, how (the w questions) during the process and have the skill of looking ahead guessing the implications of choices.
Throughout the critical thinking there should be an objective attitude examine the data from different angles checking the accuracy of them and the logic keeping them together and identifying possible flaws and backing up those data with empirical and statistics facts and reaching informed conclusions. The key is always looking beneath surface challenging your own thinking searching for the main point to prove back up the arguments with true facts and information in order to produce an analytical report transforming the information not just reporting them but pushing the ideas forward using a line of thread of ideas from start to finish.
The structure to follow in a critical thinking is:
Investigate the problem
prosecute and defend the ideas
cross examine the witnesses which is literature and add descriptions outlining ideas, theories and so on
sum up and consider theory
reach an informed verdict through a logical and reasoned argument
to add a personal reflection a third person modality should be employed by placing yourself in the background expressing your opinion without being opinionated and have a healthy skepticism.
Some element to check while finding material is:
the materials gathered should be scholarly reliable
consider the author of the material, the way they explained their ideas, their point of view, if it is biased.
A way to practice critical thinking could be to get acquainted with the researched material by getting an overview of the topic and understand it, compare it with different views of different academics, and gradually move from description to analysis.
Rhetoric is an important aspect of critical thinking which involves constructing a convincing argument and is a technique and the art of being able to talk and write about something in an efficient and persuasive way. There could be found three different formals, judicial, language of law courts, deliberative, language of politics, and epideictic, condemnation of a person.
We can Identify three different stages in Academic writing:
Description, answering to what, who where, when questions; it is always necessary to have some description in writing, it helps to introduce a topic and helps, leads to analysis.
Analysis, answering to how and why questions, is the main part of any study and tries to link everything together.
Evaluation answering what if…, what next, so what questions and judges the success, value or implication of a certain aspect.
This is a very useful table containing the word count spread throughout the critical writing.
Every paragraph itself has its own defined structure and it usually mirrors the one of the overall writing. So the first part is the topic, the second is the support and third part is the critical one, commenting on the evidence.
The introduction is an essential part of an essay, defining the key concepts and arguments and aim that will be discussed in the essay and the writer’s position on that specific topic. It should be written after the body paragraph.
First step was to import a sequence of frames using the Export buffer compression to play the footage into 3D Equalizer easier.
Confirming the position movement of the camera by tracking the scene
Tracking the positional movement of objects (always track edges or carved corners)
point the the middle tracking a pattern an the external square is the searching area, searching a few frames beforehand which can track lights into the patters or moving objects. if you split down the centre area the width created is how big the search area should be.timeline to play the footage
In 3D Equaliser, for the whole footage, there has to be found as may point as it was possible so that the software will figure out all the depth by the way the points move away or towards the camera. We first track the points using tracking method of marker (forward and backwards) in the scene for the main areas of the footage making sure that they were ended, meaning that when tracked had a start and end frame depending on if they were in the scene or not, also checking if the green bar appearing while playing the footage when tracking the point did not turn red because that would mean that the point is moving too much and that the pattern of the point needed to be edited. Unique patterns had to b e found to understand where the point is on the footage. Though the centre 2D option the point can be zoomed in and out to better control them. Never track glass because it reflect light or water because it moves, the tracking won’t be accurate. The centre area of the point should always be in the frame. All the points at the end when calculating they will be in 3D space.
The white lines are every single frame that has been tracked and every red point is the keyframe of the camera there should not be gaps. At this point the 3D environment is already taking place: match move and layout are almost the same since you recreate the object.
the lineup controls show an horizon line allow to see the track in 3D space since the points, which have the same size, depending on where they are positioned they will appear bigger(closer) or smaller (further away)to help visualise the points I give them different colours depending on the areas they covered
In this step it also helped the image control to edit the contrast and the brightness in the colour control section of the frames to spot the right points to track the tracking points:
Once the foreground of the scene had been tracked the background of the scene was tracked too to make the 3D camera more accurate and not leaving any areas out of the tracking: it involved tracking point that comes in the scene and that come out again. For this part tracking the points backward by starting forward tracking and then changing the direction in the settings and tracking backwards by ending the point first, which was useful since that most of the involved area was in the last frames.
Once the tracking was done in Maya the geometry could be created helping with the points created in the scene which was useful to get as much information as possible.
After the points have been tracked, I was able to check the quality of those points in the deviation browser. The green line and number represent the average of all of the points, and the purple lines are all of the active points used for the calculation. The deviation of the camera should be under 1 but higher than 0 otherwise it means that there is no movement. If some points had spikes and peaks through the timeline weigh and the calculation result it could be fixed since it would feather the weight of the point. The goal was to make the green line smoother.
Next step is to open the Parameter Adjustment to find the curvature of the lens that were shot when shooting the film. The lens that we used is the following:
the dimension of the camera were copied in the lens attribute editor
The pixel aspect always need to be one.
Another thing that will affect the point deviation is the lens attributes of the camera. To Recreate the camera curvature: add the film back hight and width from the camera in order to be able to recreate the Camera depth (see above) and where we add the recalculates after we tracked the different distortion of the lens.
The first is select the important attributes that will need to be changed : the focal length of the lens. I can allow the software to do this by changing it from fixed to adjust. Since the lens will also have some type of distortion
with settings set to Brute force, and after clicking Adjust, the computer will recalculate the camera parameters. The difference between Adoptive and brute force is that Adoptive will tell the software to find the best result possible
the pixel aspect should always set to 1
I have used the classic lens distortion model because is simple to use since you have only to work on:
quartic distortion moves the lens to the outside exaggerating the distortion and the distortion, the curvature of the lens, itself.
So to recap the footage should be considered as a sheet and all the point keep the sheet still and when working on the lens distortion the points will keep the footage “still”.
I then went to the 3DE4 tab and export the project to Maya: this creates a .mel file that I can then drag and drop into an empty Maya scene.
Before I export the matchmove to Maya, I will need to save an undistorted version of the sequence. This basically reverses the effect of the lens distortion depending upon the parameters that I calculated earlier. The footage has to be undistorted before it can be used in Maya otherwise the point would slide and positioned in the wrong places.
This is the part of the match move where the layout comes in. All of the locators in the Maya scene represent the 3D positions of the points from the 3DE track. The camera is also imported and is now a Maya camera that has keyframes to follow the path from the 3D Equalizer file. However, there isn’t any footage imported yet and you, therefore, can’t see where the points are in relation to that footage. I then middle dragged the camera on the left panel to create an image place in front of the camera that will stay in within the film gate as the camera moves to see where the points are in relation to the footage. Since the camera movement is now matched in 3D, any new objects in front of the camera will look as if it is on top of the original footage.To make the image move onto the next frame, I will tick use image sequence.
The camera movement is now matched in 3D, and, based on the point I have created for each area covered in 3Dequalizer, I have put some actual geometry into the scene according to the camera so that they will look as if they they are on top of the original footage.
In Animation having a good reference to use in order to create and inform your creative decisions and help lay the foundations for animating is very important especially for more complex body mechanics and performance-based animation using biped (human) characters.
The reference that coulee used can be found, gathered on the internet for instance, or recorded. they both have their advantages and disadvantages.
For Found, second hand videos the cons can be the low resolution since it might be an old video, it could have a wrong speed of the video which might be difficult to animate in maya leading to a mismatching frame rate between the footage and maya itself; the content might not be specific to what you are looking for. On the other hand it has some pros as well, such as featuring something that you might don’t have the skills to do, is more readily available and involves no shooting set up.
For personal, first hand videos the cons can be that not being a good actor could constitute a problem to match the requirements of the task; even not having the right equipment and tools or finding the place to record. Some pros, however could be that you have full directional control over what you may want to record and what you manage to shoot is unique content to the goal, it also helps producing multiple takes of the same recording and they might be stitched together for a better result.
An essential aspect of a reference is that it needs to capture real and actual forces which should not be fake or having people pretending. This could be archived by using appropriate objects and contact points and having the help of actors who have skills and being able to direct them to achieve the goal. Another element to pay attention to is the pixel quality of the video the frame rate (24-25-30 fps) – higher frame rates reduce motion blur, less motion blur leads to a more detailed action. Adding a timecode on the reference video to help matching maya’s frame rate to match your footage
This is the source reference footage for the ‘body mechanics’ and ‘advanced body mechanics’ challenges. Body mechanics a short action that involves how the body mechanically works with weight, balance, gravity and the 12 principles (a volleyball bump). Advanced body mechanics reference video and consequent animation should be an upscale of the first body mechanics and should show join motions (a volleyball smash).
The rig for these animation should be chosen following the requirements of the animation proposal and displaying rather simple controls.
I have picked the first section of the video when the girl does the first volley ball bump for the body mechanics. For the Advanced body mechanics I will do the volley ball smash at the end of the video
The following are the audio clips for the performance task in the following weeks.
A method involving reference footage is rotoscoping which, in 2D Animation, meant to draw over footage which it could be the first place you start for your animation to make it more lifelike. However it may look uncanny, strange, since it does not add anything to it, is not exaggerated and it can undone quality, although it might be useful if used to some degree.
The first step was to add a time code using After Effects to the reference footage I have chosen to work with and export the footage in images to help creating the animation (rotoscoping). I after imported the character in Maya and created a camera and imported the image sequence in the camera. Next phases to roughly match the rig to the footage image. An animation method to be used could be involving stepped keyframes and after the animation is completed switch them back to curves. I have also created a character sets which helped me select all the rig controls at once and I achieved that with the script editor collecting all the script for the different controls together: I have created one for the overall controls and one for the spine. The rig had both IK (which connects movement and FK so I have decided that for my animation I would have kept IK for the legs and FK for the arms. Since is a volleyball animation I have also imported within the scene the ball used in week one and used a volleyball texture.
characters setscontrols to manually colour a breakdown in green
The first animation step consisted in rotoscoping the first pose, in my case I have started from the moment of when the person hits the ball and continued forward and backwards from there. I have chosen to potion the keyframes every 8 frames more or less and started to work on the rig starting form the centre of gravity and spine. The first block keyframes I did had a problem: the centre gravity controls were moving, since I only used the side via at first, and leg position where incorrect I added a camera for front view as well to correct it.
wrong
first edit
In order to visualise better my animation I have coloured the break downs in green to differentiate them from the main keys in red using a colour code and selecting them from the graph editor. I did not use the maya breakdown method because if I had to move any key for any reason it would have averaged out the position of the keys as well.
I have also added into the scene a volleyball and animated it according to the reference video: I have used the ball rig employed in week 1 to animate the bouncing ball and animated following those steps more or less. I first keyed the positions, added the rotation and all added the squash and stretch of the ball and added an initial casual position to add a natural effect to the overall animation. At first I had used the “common rigged ball” so I could not used that last element of the ball. I after imported the correct rig, the ultimate ball rig, so I could complete the animation.
wrong ball rig
This is the version of the animation with the correction applied to the character rig and the ball animation together.
I have also modified the direction of the elbows during the animation
overlap and follow through, arcs
After my teacher cleaned up the character sets and reduced keyframes I worked on the feet position hand rig position and spine flex during the animation side to side and up and down.
The first section of the book concerns some examples regarding the elements of the rise-en-scène which I found particularly interesting.
minute 3
The book carries an interesting analysis on the long take which begins the second sequence of Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock, focusing on the use of lighting as a powerful and expressive tool: every character at the party is illuminated evenly, such as the main character Alicia Huberman, but there is a quiet guest in the foreground of the frame that sits with his back to the camera where he is not illuminated but has a distinguished silhouette. Even thought he says nothing at first it is easy to identify him with Cary Grant, the man lead of the film: Cary Grant’s not illuminated silhouette make him become part of the audience itself, sharing perspective and observations too.
minute 33
In the book there is an interesting reference to an article (V.F. Perkins, Moment of Choice) about a scene from Jean Renoir’s La Règle du Jeu. The article analyses a range of examples of the ways different elements of the mise-en-scène can be employed expressively: The example used for the décor is from this film at the start of a country-house party where the hostess, Christine tries to deny the gossip about her relationship with André Jurieu, a young aviator. The décor in this scene permits a parallel with the black and white marble tiled floor which can be interpreted as a chess-board where the two characters move carefully since that a wrong move could lead to disaster.
In the second section it highlights the fact that all the elements of the mice-en-scène, even if they are individually expressive, depends on their effect on a combination of elements: again in the film “La regale du Jeu” the performance of Christine, the décor, the camera position and camera movement are all involved. Although, in order to make them collaborate better in the scene, it is important to be able to describe the potential of each singular element.
