I have decided that I will set the scene for the Fisherman project in the early morning since I have carried out some research on fishing and I have found out that fish are more active in the morning and late evening (this results in greater feeding confidence from the fish) and experienced fishermen tend to go at this time of the day.
I have researched few ways I could create exterior lighting in maya and I have found d this tutorial which I have implemented in my scene using the physical sky tool in Arnold to recreate ambient sky.
when you create a physical sky it creates a dome and you are able to see it using Arnold render view: what it created is a gradient sky with an horizon light. The is one source of light which is mimicking the sun that is why the light has warm values and blue shadows.
You can control the dome rotation. In the physical sky menu you can use the ground albedo option to lighten up the background affecting the bounce light. Elevation is the option to use to decide where you want the sky to be. Azimuth can rotate the light. The sky tint can edit the sky colour. You can even change the size of the sun or turn it off and on depending on the ambient light you want.
Knowing all this, I have applied it to the ocean scene I have previously created:
I also continued experimenting with the ocean/lake I want to create for the project and I followed this tutorial:
I have created a disc and implemented the geometry of if (turning up the subdivisions). Deleted the history, created an ocean shader but when you run the animation the disc is flat and the waves are not showing. In the effects menu I have selected BOSS editor, I have first created a wave solver and created a spectral wave which added waves to the surface. In the menu you can edit the heights of the waves, the length as well as the scale of it. I have used TMA as the frequency spectra type to randomise the waves. In the future I will add my boat to in to have local influence on the water.
This week I have been trying to add fur to the cat to experiment. I have found these videos where they use Xgen plug-in in Maya. XGen is an instancing tool most commonly used for creating hair or populating a scene with instanced geometry. There are two primary methods of using it, depending on what you want to do.
This is a screenshot of my first attempt of using xgen, unfortunately when I have applied the xgen collection to the cat geometry it took a very long time to load and when I tried to adjust the lengths, the width and the distribution of the fur it did not affect the original fur at all.
Since the first attempt of xgen did not work I tried to remesh to quadrangular mesh from triangular mesh which may have taken off the level of detail of the mesh and fur would have been easier to create.
However, I have attempted to apply fur to the remeshed polygon but the fur would still take too much time to load and I was not able to edit it either.
texturing and rigging the rest of the props
Regarding the fisherman project this week I have added some textures, especially bump map values to some of the props that are part of the scenes. Especially for the boat which will be an important asset for the animation
This week I also rigged the fishing rod and studied more which movements it would have to make and rigged the object starting from this reasoning.
For the handle I have just grouped together the main parts of the engine and set the origin at the centre so that when I rotate the handle they would rotate on the same pivot.
As for the main “body” of the fishing rod, I have created some joints which I will after apply some set driven keys to make it brand forward and backward.
This week I have been working on both of the projects main rigs: the fisherman and the cat.
Fisherman:
On Youtube I have found this channel which explains thoroughly how to rig a humanoid characters adding the main and basic features that a model would need. This sets of videos are different according to which part of the body they are explaining.
Feet Control
This video explains how to rig the feet of the character to add foot and toes rolls and how the hierarchy of both the controls an d the rig would work
Following the video I have applied these notions to my character
This is the hierarchy of the foot in the outliner: I have grouped each IK handle and nesting them within each other according to the movement of the foot I after parent constraint the main group to the foot control that I would use to move it.
For the leg Ik handle I have used the following settings checking the sticky options which allowed me to make the feet sticking to the ground when the legs bend.
The video also showed how to created a pole vector to point the knee direction which is made bu selecting the pole and pole constraint it to the leg handle.
The arms also follow a FK system where the shoulder joint is the parent and the elbow and the wrist are the child and the wrist itself the child of the elbow joint.
In order for the fingers to curl I have created a set of driven keys using attributes belonging to the wrist control one for each finger where the top joint, which is parented to the others, curl when the attribute is activated (on 1)
Following this tutorial I have created a control for the head and parent constrain it ti the head joint to allow the character to roll the head and twist it too.
the face controls for the characters are the following: one for each brow, one for each moustache and the eyes controls one for each eye and a general one: the eyes are aim constrained to the controls to have his pupils moving along having the head still. the eyes controls are going to be nested to the main body control directly so that when the character moves the eyes won’t be still.
If when I will import the character into the main scene I will have to adjust his size I can scale it with the main body control using constraint scale
outliner clean up
This is the final groups arrangement for the character.
After each control was assigned and working I polished the character movements with skin weights, in the following picture I was skin weighting the head making sure that the shoulders were not influenced and the ears as well.
Feet won’t stay attached to the ground where the chest or hip controls were pulled down because the feet controls should not be parent to them but to the main body control.
rearranged the controls FK to help the cat sit and move better: at first I thought that the cat body hierarchy was going to be different compared to a biped one, however I have experimented with it and I have found that parenting everything to the hips works just as well, apart for the feet so that they will stick to the ground when the hips are bending.
do the skin weight for the legs especially the rear ones, was very challenging since they are going to bend and stretch very much especially when the cat will sit down
Foe the skin weight I have found to be more accurate the colour ramp which uses a range of different colours where red is where the joint has more influence on and dark blue the least influence on.
This week I had a 1 to 1 with my lecture and he suggested that I blended more the darker parts of the skin to the brighter ones. So I have imported the model in Procreate, an app which recently offers the option, once imported, to paint 3D models using a UV map.
I then added the IK handles for the legs one to make the “knee” and one for the upper part bending the opposite way both for the forelegs and rear legs
For the body rig I have done a research for some videos and I followed the following one as a starting point since I have never rigged a human body
I have used the mixiamo website to rig the model by exporting the fbx file of the model into the website and assigning to the rig the chin position the wrist the elbows the knees and groin of the character to start build the structure from
The model did not many problem with the mesh after it was binded except for the arms joints which had an influence on the head and the ears as well so I skin weighted this part to correct it.
This week I modeled the Cat for the “cat’s secret life” project, I feel that that over the last term my modeling skills got better since that I had to create several for these two projects and collaborative project as well and I have now a set of tools in maya that help me model the props and characters.
These are some pictures showing the process of the cat model: I always start from a simple geometry a circle in this case smith it and select the vertices using the smooth selection tool most of the time to create the main shapes: for its head I have used a sphere, for the body a sphere as well and extrude the faces creating proportioned faces following the polymodeling technique for the body I extrude the faces to create the tale, the four legs and the neck too.
From the head shape I extruded the faces for the ears and extruded and moved the vertices to get to the final look. I also deleted some faces after having created them with the multi-cut tool to create a hole for the two eyes that I have created starting from two spheres and selecting the faces to make the pupils assigning them different colours.
I have assigned different colours materials to the body to make the cat similar to a Siamese cat
Which other props will I need for this project?
Based on my storyboards I have created a list of props that I will need to create my short animation “Cat’s Secret life”:person (owner) legs, door, cat’s bed, table with vases and lamp, sausage chain, small sofa.
Since that the perspective of the camera is going to be the one of the cat and therefor in would develop at a lower level following its view, I won’t need a whole body to be modeled but just the legs which I have created with a smoothed sphere polygon and extruding two faces for the legs, and from the legs I consequently extruded other two faces to create the feet. I added few details manipulating the vertices and assigned different textures to differentiate the different parts.
For the cat’s bed I opted for a classic design (just like the one that my own cat has) creating the pillow where he would sit and the side pads I even added a label to allude that that it’s his property.
One of the scenes depicts the owner living the house an d one the owner coming back home: I have designed a door with a wall for that scene starting form a cube polygon
This is the door knob I have created starting from a cylinder and extruding its faces.
In one of the scenes the cat breaks a vase by pushing it down form a table. I have decided to design a chinese vase to imply the fragility and value of it.
After I had created the main shape I have assigned a texture to it but it was spreader evenly on the surface that’s why I have UV mapped the vase surface
I then extruded the faces to created the drawers, I also UV mapped the table after using a planar UV Mapping since I have assigned a wood texture and also added a bump map to give it texture too
I after assembled the scene after creating a lamp as well: I have added some attributes in the emission of the lamp texture to make it glow, I also put two area lights inside to simulate light coming out of it.
I also modelled the sofa that the cat is going to scratch his nails onto, for this specific model the bevel top was particularly useful to create the pillows of the sofa
For the pillows I had done a research to see which is the best way to model one and I have found this video which was very useful since it show how to use the cloth simulation to quickly create one.
This week I have started model the assets for the fisherman project:
I have started from the focus of the short movie which is the fisherman character.
I have imported the model sheet first to use as a reference for modeling
I have created a cube and from the side and front view I have adapted it to the reference design
Once the face shape was ready I have deleted two faces for the eyes and extrude one for the nose
I after started working on the body by extruding some faces at the bottom of the face to create a neck and extruded them again to create the body
after I created new polygons and shape them to use as eyebrows and moustache which made him more expressive
I then created an hexagon shape to model the hat he would wear extruding the faces to create the main shape
I have extruded the faces at the side of his head to create some hear and added few strings of hear at the top
later I thought it would have been better to remodel the body since I was not happy with the first vesting of it. I have also added few details such a s hands and clothes which i have modeled starting from the body shape duplicating it and deleting the faces that I did not need. For the hand I used the cut tool to create new edges to then stitch together to simulate the fingers.
Boat model
I have also modelled the fishing boat where I have used the create edge loops, the cut and the extrude tool mostly to create it. I have assigned it a simple standard surface for the moment I will after export the uv map to add a bit of moss and scratches to make it more old and used.
Fishing rod
Another essential prop for the story is the fishing rod that the fisherman will use: I have created a very simple and rural one that may fit better with the character
After I have also used two reference pictures to model the fish and the corncob pipe, for this props I have used the soft selection tool to easily adapt the geometry to the picture without ruining the topology of the mesh. The extruding tool was also very helpful in this process especially to create external parts of the model without using different geometries.
The first aspect I should consider in order to plan my work is what is going to be framed in the scenes so that I will be working on assets based on that. I should focus on essential assets and the main character would be the most important one. As long as I have the main props for the scene to make the narrative work and the scenario recognisable for the audience I could even use some infinity backgrounds for the overall environment.
this is the link for the whiteboard on Miro I have created where I will update my development:
I have created a moodboard which may help me in the development phase to visualise better the character, the environment and the overall tone I want to create for this project. I have included some designs that I could take inspiration from for the props, and the character design and also a couple of films, “Joy” and “Luca”, the former is a short animated showcasing the tale of the lovable small dog (Joy) and a pesky Heron. Even though the story is not centred on fishing the main character is out with his owner on a fishing trip. The latter is Luca the latest Pixar animation film and is set in a beautiful seaside town on the Italian Riviera where fishing is one of the main focus and can be very inspirational for me for the overall tone and fishing tools they use as well.
I have added a description to the Fisherman project storyboards both regarding the narration and the sound
Character design
I have started by designing the main focus of the animation: the fisherman. I tried to experiment with his age, his look and attitude. Since that he is inexpert I thought that a younger look would fit more, however even a more aged man would be very funny as well since he might have been better when he was younger and stronger, but now that he is old he has lost his skills. The aspect I am more sure about is his clothes: I researched into fisherman looks and generally they are all wearing a cap with overshoes and a jackets with many pockets, probably to put baits.
How to Convey Character’s Personality Through Shape, Variance and Size?
The impression of the physical appearance of a character affects the impression of personality traits. The main tools to refer to are shape, variance and size, which should be all used when designing a character.
Shape: facial expression is really secondary when reading a character; first thing to notice is the face shape, posture and body language, and shapes have more universal meaning across the globe compared to colour. We often subconsciously assign qualities to a person or a character by only perceiving him/her as a combination of shapes. Square shapes are assigned to characters to project his solid, stable and may be stubborn personality as well as its dependability and confidence. On the other hand, the perception of oval shapes that safe, soft, friendly, safe and harmless, on the contrary, angular shapes has always projected danger and often designers use triangles and pointy shapes in their villain character’s personality. artists also use them to show a hero’s determination, drive and opportunism.
Variance: characters should be divided into 3 parts: head, torso and legs. Since contrast creates interest they should have different proportions of these elements described above. This is also used in the proportions for the face on a smaller scale. For instance, babies have large, round heads and small bodies, which is what makes them so adorable.
Size: using the size relationships in your character can make their design more appealing. A good design is often characterised by different in size shapes, combined in an interesting and unpredictable way.
First identify its personality: He is going to have stubborn personality since he is a fisherman who is determined to catch a fish so I started out his design from square shapes, However I wanted him to have also created contrast in his body legs and torso proportions to make it more interesting: his head is bigger compared to the rest of the body which may resemble “babies” proportions so to make it look sweeter and less intimidating. he is going to wear a large dungarees and a big head to stress even more his short size; moreover I though I could add a corncob pipe which would characterise him even more. Having so defined body features will help when I will have my model ready to animate to first focus on body expressions rather that facial ones.
Work on the scene set up, which model will I need:
Following the storyboard I have created I will be producing the following props – boat, fishing stick, fish, corncob pipe, water
corncob pipe reference
“Cat’s secret life” Project
(focus on the fisherman project first)
I have added a description to the “Cat’s secret life” project storyboards both regarding the narration and the sound as well:
Moadboard
In this moodboard I wanted to recreate the tone, attitude and feel of the animation I intend to create especially the personality of the cat who is the protagonist. I have added few picture from different animation films which pictured cats in it: from “the secret life of pets” in particular regarding Chloe, one of the main protagonists. Chloe has an eating disorder. She’s shown to be apathetic, indifferent, and slothful – she doesn’t care much. The only things she does really love are food and herself; I plan to use the other film references of films I have include more as an inspiration for the cats animation they use: “the aristocats”; the cat from “shrek” and the cat from”Oliver and company”.
Character Design
I tried to draw some cats using several reverence and styles and colours to see which one would fit better to the story
Cat personality: mischievous, active, cunning and a bit clumsy too.
The shapes I have used for the final design are circles for the eyes to make them active and “alive”, triangles for the ears and the mouth to project danger and also use them to show determination, drive and opportunism. The squared face shape shows its stubborn personality as well as its dependability and confidence.
Difference between humanoid animation and animals animation (emotions, movements)
Considering these two project ideas I have come up with, I have identified the main difference between them which I can research into: the main characters are very different since one is a human and the other is a cat. So, how can I, as an animator, differentiate the way I convey their emotions and movements?
As for the fisherman he is a man, and acting videos are easier to find or make myself. Moreover, a great deal of human brain is dedicated to deciphering the emotional state of other humans so it might be easier to animate them rather than animate animals.
Regarding the way to animate animals, just like it happens for humans, is through observation; and also since us as animators and audience are used to apply and communicate throughout our emotional intelligence, in animation there is a process frequently used which is “anthropomorphism of movements of the animals character animation”: the attribution of human form or other human characteristics to any nonhuman object. So, their species features and design can impact the storytelling and characterisation of an animal character. Moreover, attributing human traits and qualities allows for us as an audience to empathise with the characters.
So how does anthropomorphism add to characterisation and storytelling?
“Kung Fu Panda“, for instance, is the story of a bipedal, lazy and overweight panda becoming a martial arts master. The process which helped to develop a charming and well executed story was taking the apparent traits of a real panda and creating a narrative that surrounds those characteristics. Real world problems become animalistic versions of problems, letting us feel for the protagonists. This is the idea behind my project on cats’ secrets life: being myself an owner of a cat I have noticed throughout the time that he has certain behaviours and habits which are notoriously acknowledged when referring and thinking of cats in general which are for example being mischievous, witty or even lazy.
I think that the most human like feature though would not be attributed its physical features but the way the cat will convey its emotions: we attribute those human feeling to cats as humans since those specific feelings are the only one we can express, we can understand and, most of all, are mostly used to.
The use of arms and legs would also different in quadruped (animals, cats in this case) and biped (human, fisherman): the quadruped have their upper limbs as active as their lower limbs which would not only affect its animation but also its rig structure and hierarchy.
Storyboarding takes place in the initial stages of a Design process/Project Setting in the Industry where initial ideas are developed. The design process in the Industry follows a specific pipeline and meetings with clients are regularly scheduled to update them on the progress made on the project.
Storyboard
In the storyboard may aspects are considered and it is a crucial phase of the project initial ideas. Things such as overall style, the quantity of characters, the environments or even camera angles are decided and considered.
When considering style in a storyboard there could be made choices such as using cartoons or humanoids, to simulate the real world or having an anime environment style even if is going to be a 2D or 3D animation and how the law of physics are applied. However even if the storyboard determines the overall style, the style does not determine the logic of an animation.
In order to work efficiently while creating a storyboard is better working following a hierarchy of elements present within the scene. Time is another important aspect of storyboarding since it can also determine how many frames or how detail you want to show off for a singular action. A possible approach may be the pose to pose where every action and frame are showed.
If there are are dynamic designs this aspect can boost the appeal of the entire stage so storyboarding can help determine the amount of appeal on your stage. Proportion may be useful since it can give emotion and characteristics. Audience is easy to be drawn towards shapes and colours rather that specific details. Storyboards don’t have to be too complicated, good achievements can be obtained with simplicity too: form follows function and function follows forms.
Staging
Staging is one of the 12 principles of animation, when talking about staging we are referring to camera angle and position, timing, acting or even settings. Camera has a role in staging since that it controls the presentation and viewpoint. Different distance and angle of a camera position will have different outcome based on what you wanted to communicate from the protagonist. Screen Space is also an important element to take in consideration since it is where the attention is directed in the scene. Camera distance may also determine different meanings: for characters you can use a code up for facial expression and fa r shot for body gesture; for buildings close ups are used for details and to see properties while far shots for more overall book like a city skyscraper. The camera is not supposed to be positioned away from what is supposed to be focused on unless there is a reason for it. The camera viewpoint must be switched on what you are showing.
Contrast and focal point
Our attention will change if there are distinct difference of colours, animation, scale, size, lighting: we need to consider what to put in the stage, work out the balance and make sure it delivers what you want to show.
Timing: pausing
Sometimes delaying allows audience to absorb and digest what is happening so pausing, slow-paced camera shift are elements to not be discarded.
Acting
Characters’ act and pose will be important to tell the story or the moment: with the correct angle of posing and camera, even stripping all the details and colours, good characteristics can still understand in silhouette shade.
Setting: emotions, characteristic and themes
Every colour indicates a certain state of mind, so they must be used wisely to convey emotions in the scene. Settings and props must reflect the state of mind of the characters they should align with him or her, however over detailing can obscure what’s happening taking out balance to the background. Well planned storyboards will allow you to understand what is needed to be included in the project, what should be prioritised, what is not and how much time you should spend on each element.
After the lecture we were given a chance to create a storyboard for two possible ideas to use and develop as two 3D animation projects for this module. Our professor gave us some guidelines to use to plan them.
Project 1 idea
Intro
Name of the project: Cats’ secret life
What is it?: a short animation film
Narrative
What is the story?: the animation short is going to showcase some habits that a cat does when is home alone without his or her owners with an ironic tone.
What is the event?: the sort is going to start with the owner leaving the house and after there will be showed three actions where the cat would do things he is not supposed to do.
Storyboard:
Project 2 idea
Intro
Name of the project: Fisherman
What is it?: a short animation film
Narrative
What is the story?: A not-so-lucky fisherman is out fishing on his boat, and suddenly something take the bait he is using to fish and he struggles to pick it up because it seems extremely heavy, however it turns out to be a very small fish and he feels disappointed in the end.
What is the event?: A fisherman fishing on his boat trying to catch a big fish, or at leat some fish since he has not been so lucky so far.
Storyboard:
Narrative arc
These are some notes on the lecture we had about story arc in term 1:
to develop the story for these two project I have followed a narrative arc for the path that the story itself follows providing a clear beginning, middle, and end of the story.
Every story has a beginning, middle, and end, with the middle typically taking up a longer period of time than the beginning or the end. Every narrative arc has key points, traditional stories have key plot sections and points that map nicely onto this arc:
Exposition: which introduces the setting, the character and the problems they face. For the “fisherman” project this would be the first few frames where he is out fishing and he is sad because he has not caught any fish yet. for the “cats’ secret life” project the owner of the cat leaves the house and the cat stop pretending to be asleep and shows that he has a plan from his expression.
Rising action: moves the plot forward by showing characters fighting against their problems. For the “Fisherman” project the fisherman realises that something catches the bait and he put so much effort to catch it and do not loose it. In the “cats’ secret life” project the cats is showed in a series of actions that he is not supposed to do but the owner is not at home so he is free.
Climax: tensest moment of the crisis; it describes the moment when the characters face a crisis that controls the rest of the plot. For the “Fisherman” project the fisherman finally catches the catches the fish and falls on the boat. In the “cats’ secret life” project the owner comes back home.
Falling action: which moves the plot from the climax towards an ending. For the “Fisherman” project the fisherman sadly realises that he has only caught a very small fish. In the “cats’ secret life” project the cat realises that the cat is back home and is surprised.
Resolution: brings the story to stability by showing the final results of the climax. For the “Fisherman” project the fisherman leaves the fish free in the water disappointed. In the “cats’ secret life” project the cats goes back pretending he is asleep before the owner notices that he has doing things he should’ve done.
